Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in Canada with wide, unexplained regional variations in heart disease mortality. However, no studies to date have explored the relationship between a number of health region characteristics and regional variation in heart disease mortality rates across Canada. Researchers studied the contribution of various traditional cardiac risk factors, social determinants of health and other community characteristics to regional variations in heart disease mortality rates across Canada. Cardiovascular disease mortality rates were obtained from Statistics Canada for three years – 1995 to 1997. Health region characteristics were taken from the 2000/2001 Canadian Community Health Survey, and the 1996 Canadian Census and the Labour Force Survey. Linear regression analyses and analyses of variance were employed to identify relationships between these health region characteristics and cardiovascular disease mortality rates. What is the design of this study?