About the Center

The Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center (CSCC) was established in 1971 as the Lipids Research Clinic Data Coordinating Center and was the second coordinating center to be funded by the NIH. It has coordinated activities for over 30 large, multi-site clinical trials and epidemiology studies involving hundreds of clinical or field centers and hundreds of thousands of patients, and produced over 1,000 research publications. The mission of the CSCC is "to improve public health by coordinating important health research, developing innovative research methodology, and providing training in the application of research methods." In its 30 years of continuous NIH funding, the CSCC has been at the forefront of research projects that have changed the practice of medicine, such as:

• LRC-CPPT: lipid reduction for CHD prevention
• SOLVD: ACE-inhibition for reduced mortality in CHF
• ACAS: endarterectomy reducing stroke in asymptomatic carotid atherosclerosis

Currently active CSCC projects span the following clinical areas: cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, nutrition & obesity, periodontal disease, kidney disease, respiratory disease, mental health, and child health. The longest running active CSCC project is the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC), begun in 1986 with continuing follow-up of a cohort of over 15,000 individuals. The most recently awarded project is the Hispanic Community Health Study, a prospective epidemiological study of 16,000 Hispanics living in the US designed to evaluate risk factors and health outcomes for this fast-growing minority population. Visit the Home and Past Studies pages for more information on all of our studies.

Learn about our pioneering Data Management history.