OBJECTIVE: To determine the significance of the selected risk markers in the development of high blood pressure in a relatively short period of time. DESIGN: Longitudinal or cohort study of a sample of a population from the municipality of Cienfuegos, as a second measurement of the Cienfuegos Global Project. CONTEXT: Community. Municipality of Cienfuegos; geographic area of the subject-object intervention-investigation of the Cienfuegos Global Project. SUBJECT: 1,369 adults aged 15 years of more (619 men and 750 women; 1,294 alive and 75 dead) were followed from January 1992 to February 1994, which constitutes an alleatory, stratified, equiprobabilistic sample by age and sex. Persons diagnosed as hypertensive in the initial evaluation of Cienfuegos Global Project were excluded, so that the new series for hypertensive patients was constituted by 731 individuals with 125 new patients when the risk markers age, sex, color of skin, family history of high blood pressure, salt consumption, sedentarism, alcoholism and tobaccoism were studied. The association of the risk markers hypercholesterolemia or risky cholesterolemia and obesity was studied with another series formed by a second sample of 417 individuals, this sample introduced 74 new cases of high blood pressure. MAIN OUTCOME: It was intended to estimate the odds ratio for high blood pressure for the different risk markers studied, in those patients exposed or not to them. RESULTS: The odds ratio for each of the risk markers was determined. The odds related to age increased from 1.37, to 1.86 in males and decreased to 0.64 in white individuals. These 3 results were statistically significant as risk markers for high blood pressure. The odds ratio for the remaining risk markers had no statistical significance. CONCLUSION: The age, male sex, and black race, in the comparatively short term--slightly over two years--are the main risk markers that will markedly favor the appearance of high blood pressure.