The Pawtucket Heart Health Program arose from a concern that the needs of society could not be met through palliative treatment of coronary heart disease. In 1977, a program designed to facilitate rehabilitation and, hopefully, to provide possible secondary preventive measures for patients with symptomatic coronary heart disease was begun. Simultaneously, the conviction grew that the national interest would be served by careful research into whether or not coronary heart disease was preventable through modification of those aspects of individual and group behavior which influenced the major cardiovascular risk factors in free living populations.