Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study: Baseline characteristics of the household sample and comparative analyses with national data in 17 countries

BACKGROUND The PURE study was established to investigate associations between social, behavioural, genetic, and environmental factors and cardiovascular diseases in 17 countries. In this analysis we compare the age, sex, urban/rural, mortality, and educational profiles of the PURE participants to national statistics. METHODS PURE employed a community-based sampling and recruitment strategy where urban and rural communities were selected within countries. Within communities, representative samples of adults aged 35 to 70 years and their household members (n = 424,921) were invited for participation. RESULTS The PURE household population compared to national statistics had more women (sex ratio 95.1 men per 100 women vs 100.3) and was older (33.1 years vs 27.3), although age had a positive linear relationship between the two…