CARRS Cohort Study
The CARRS Cohort is a state-of-the-art, population-based cohort of South Asians to address existing and emerging questions related to cardio-metabolic disease.
Cardiometabolic diseases (like heart disease and diabetes) are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, and untreated cardiometabolic diseases are among this century’s biggest threat to health and development. The South Asian region is at the epicenter of the cardiometabolic diseases epidemic, with the largest number of cardiovascular disease deaths occurring in India (2.57 million in 2020). Cohorts in high-income countries (HICs) have contributed to the advancement in knowledge about cardiometabolic diseases, and have provided the infrastructure for interdisciplinary and dynamic scientific explorations, keeping pace with advances in technology. Well-characterized, prospective epidemiological cohorts to granularly study the natural history of disease and evolution of prevention and care in the South Asian region are lacking. This data gap must be urgently addressed because the South Asian population has a heightened risk of cardiometabolic diseases, even at young ages and at low body weights.
The CARRS Cohort in India was assembled in two waves [CARRS-1 (2010-11) n=12,271; 10,205 with biospecimens and CARRS-2 (2015-16), n=9,593; 9,070 with biospecimens], as population-based representative samples of Delhi and Chennai.
The cohort is followed annually for events and mortality, and biennially for collection of biospecimins and anthropometric measurements. So far we have followed 21,864 people aged ≥20 years (19,275 gave biospecimens) and accrued 176,536 person years of follow up, and maintained a biorepository of >360,000 samples.