The REWARD Project (REgistry of Weight And Related Disorders) is a long-term study on body weight and how it relates to health. The main goal of the project is to maintain a large, disease-specific, longitudinal, population cohort allowing for mortality and morbidity analyses of adult participants in a natural setting thereby providing critical information on one of the most serious and rapidly escalating health problems in developed countries today-obesity. The Statistics and Consulting Unit at Boston University serves as the project's main data management and analysis center.

The REWARD Project is recruiting 200,000 adults from all regions of the United States and Canada and will be following these participants for at least 3 years. As a registry, the REWARD Project collects data on participants' weight, health status and lifestyle habits to help researchers determine how weight and lifestyle habits relate to a variety of conditions and outcomes like blood pressure, diabetes, depression and heart disease. The REWARD Project is also gathering information on a variety of weight management strategies to help determine which strategies are most safe and effective.

Some of REWARD’s other major contributors include:

q      Peter W. F. Wilson, M.D., Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at Boston University School of Medicine and Director of Laboratories at the Framingham Heart Study, is the Principal Investigator and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board.

q      James M. Rippe, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at Tufts University School of Medicine and Founder and Director of Rippe Lifestyle Institute, is the Coordinating Center Director and Chair of the Clinical Advisory Board.

q      Bette Caan, Dr.PH, Senior Epidemiologist, Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, is Chair of the Managed Care Component of the REWARD Project.

q      Rippe Lifestyle Institute, in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, is the REWARD Project Coordinating Center.

q      REWARD advisory board members are top researchers, academicians and clinicians from across the United States and Canada.

q      Funding for the REWARD Project is provided by Roche Laboratories Inc.


If you’d like more information, please visit the REWARD Project website at www.rewardproject.org.