Framingham Heart Study Research Volunteers Change the World

Landmark Boston University–led study that revealed impacts of smoking, obesity on cardiovascular health still going strong after 78 years

This was turning into an epic journey. In February 2025, Monica and Ximena Martinez started what should have been a routine trip from their home in Kissimmee, Fla., to Massachusetts. The sisters, both in their late 40s, are devoted participants in the Boston University–led Framingham Heart Study, named for the Greater Boston suburb where they grew up, and they return north every few years for a half-day of questions, tests, and examinations at study headquarters.

First, their flight was delayed, then delayed again. By the time they landed at Boston Logan International Airport and picked up their rental car, it was well after one in the morning. Too late to drop in on family and find a bed for the night as they’d planned. Still, they were not going to miss their appointments, scheduled to start in about six hours.

So, they drove out to Framingham in the darkness—and slept in the car.

By 7:30 that morning, the sisters were ready, even eager, for their checkups: four-plus hours of tests, questions, measurements, scans, blood draws, and a 100-question survey about their diet. Often, there are additional exams by scientists who have won grants to use Framingham Heart Study data to research Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions.

The Martinez sisters are among the thousands of participants in this research, the nation’s longest-running cohort study of cardiovascular health. All of them have ties to Framingham, and all keep coming back to do their part.

“This is something that is so unique in research, where, if you have to do recruitment, it’s really challenging to engage people,” says Maureen Valentino, the study’s recruitment manager. “Normally, if people are going to participate, even if there’s no compensation, they want something out of it, some kind of self-gratification. In the case of Framingham, they truly understand that they are part of a bigger picture, that they are changing public health.”

Launched by the US government in 1948, the study has been run as a partnership between BU and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute since 1971. Many of its researchers come from the University’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center (BMC), its primary teaching hospital, as well as other Boston institutions.

Read the full article here:

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2026/framingham-heart-study-research-volunteers-change-world/