Nutrition is well-recognized as a necessary component of educational programs for physicians. This is to be valued in that of all factors affecting health in the United States, none is more important than nutrition. This can be argued from various perspectives, including health promotion, disease prevention, and therapeutic management. In all cases, serious consideration of nutrition related issues in the practice is seen to be one means to achieve cost-effective medical care. These modules were developed to provide more practical knowledge for health care providers, and in particular primary care physicians. This module is designed to aquaint the primary care physician with the role risk factors play in the disease process and to identify how risk factors (such as diet) may be modified in order to lessen the threat of chronic disease. Cardiovascular disease and cancer are used as models for the application of risk factor analysis in disease prevention. Included are learning goals and objectives, a self-check of achievement with regard to goals, and references. (CW)