Since 1960, age-adjusted cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality rates have steadily declined in the United States due to multiple factors, but still remain a major cause of morbidity and premature mortality worldwide. Greater control of risk factors and improved treatments for cardiovascular disease have contributed significantly to this decline (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). In the United States alone, it causes approximately 830,000 deaths each year and represents 1/6 of all deaths under the age of 65 (Weiss and Lonnquist, 2011). Based on 2007 mortality rate data, an average of 1 death every 37 seconds is due to cardiovascular disease (Lloyd-Jones et al., 2009). Controlling and reducing risk factors is essential to saving human lives. There are numerous risk factors for cardiovascular disease that can present themselves in the form of hereditary, behavioral and psychological factors, which ultimately converge into social or cultural factors. Hereditary risk factors for cardiovascular disease are primarily those that individuals cannot control, the ones they were born with. These risk factors include an individual's sex, race, age, and genetics. One in five men suffers from some form of cardiovascular disease and the same goes for women. In this country, more women than men have cardiovascular disease, but this is only due to the fact that there are more women in the US population (Weiss and Lonnquist, 2011). Percentage wise, men are at greater risk than women. There is a rather small chance for women to have cardiovascular disease before menopause. Medical researchers and scientists believe this is directly related to natural horror...... middle of paper ...... J. (2009). Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics: 2010 Update: A Report from the American Heart Association. Journal of the American Heart Association. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.192667Lynch, J. W. (1996). Do cardiovascular risk factors explain the relationship between socioeconomic status, all-cause morality risk, cardiovascular mortality, and acute myocardial infarction? American Journal of Epidemiology, 144 (10), 934-942. Schmid, T. L., Pratt, M., & Howze, E. (1995). Policy as intervention: environmental and political approaches to cardiovascular disease prevention. American Journal of Public Health, 85(9), 1207-1211. Weiss, G. L., & Lonnquist, L. E. (2011). The sociology of health, healing and illness (7 ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall.William, W.D. (2004). Culture and disease risk. British Medical Bulletin, 69, 21-31. doi: 10.1093/bmb/ldh020