Focusing on cardiovascular diseases, the work of this group aims to investigate the aetiology and prognosis of the specific conditions which doctors diagnose, and to extend understanding of the broad aggregates (e.g. “coronary heart disease”) which epidemiologists commonly report.By using conventional cohort studies, complemented by systematic reviews and large clinical datasets, such as the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) and the Myocardial Ischemia National Audit Project (MINAP), we are investigating the epidemiology of stable angina and prognostically important sub-types of heart attack (e.g. those with and without the electrocardiographic finding of an elevated ST segment). Intriguingly, one emerging finding from this approach is that the association of male sex with specific coronary endpoints differs markedly, and is lacking for stable angina. We seek to elucidate the social, environmental, and biological explanations for these, and other, differences.