Heart disease risk factors in Los Angeles County safety personnel.

Eight generally accepted heart disease risk factors (age, sex, family history, blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, smoking and exercise) were used in the computation of a cardiac index (RISKO) for 4,066 safety personnel of the County of Los Angeles. Seventy-one individuals subsequently developed coronary disease. The index had significant value in identifying the individuals who were to develop symptomatic coronary disease, and its discriminative power was comparable to the power of the Framingham index.