Brisighella Heart Study

For over 50 years, the population of the municipality of Brisighella has been the subject of a clinical-epidemiological study for risk factors referable to cardiovascular and dysmetabolic diseases, now universally known to the scientific and academic world as the Brisighella Heart study.

The medical-scientific project started in 1972 is the result of a fruitful collaboration between the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Bologna and the Municipality of Brisighella.

Due to its dynamic continuity, the study now represents one of the longest-running and most advanced cases of longitudinal monitoring of a population worldwide, together with the American Framingham study.

Thanks to the cooperation of citizens, the municipal administration, General Practitioners and the local health authority, the risk factors observed, which were initially higher than average, have changed over time and are now lower than average, thanks also to a series of information and education measures on healthy lifestyles carried out among the local population and in schools.

The results have been presented at numerous international congresses and published in various scientific journals.