Our understanding of the risk factors for common chronic diseases has benefited from large population-based cohort studies. Although these studies are costly and time consuming, they are generally free of the survival and recall biases typically encountered in case-control studies. The cohort design, with its prospective standardized data collection, is often the preferred method for estimating disease incidence and evaluating risk factors. The Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium was formed to facilitate GWAS meta-analyses and replication opportunities among multiple large and well-phenotyped cohort studies. The design of the CHARGE Consortium includes five prospective cohort studies from the US and Europe: the Age, Gene/Environment Susceptibility (AGES)--Reykjavik Study, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study, the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), and the Rotterdam Study (RS).
