AbstractObjectiveWe prospectively determined incident cardiovascular events and their association with risk factors in rural India.MethodsWe followed up with 7935 adults from the Rishi Valley Prospective Cohort Study to identify incident cardiovascular events. Using Cox proportional hazards regression, we estimated hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for associations between potential risk factors and cardiovascular events. Population attributable fractions (PAFs) for risk factors were estimated using R (‘averisk’ package).ResultsOf the 4809 participants without prior cardiovascular disease, 57.7% were women and baseline mean age was 45.3 years. At follow‐up (median of 4.9 years, 23,180 person‐years [PYs]), 202 participants developed cardiovascular events, equating to an incidence of 8.7 cardiovascular events/1000 PYs. Incidence was greater in those with hypertension (hazard ratio [HR] [95% CI] 1.73 [1.21–2.49], adjusted PAF 18%), diabetes (1.96 [1.15–3.36], 4%) or central obesity (1.77 [1.23, 2.54], 9%) which together accounted for 31% of the PAF. Non‐traditional risk factors such as night sleeping hours and number of children accounted for 16% of the PAF.ConclusionsBoth traditional and non‐traditional cardiovascular risk factors are important contributors to incident cardiovascular events in rural India. Interventions targeted to these factors could assist in reducing the incidence of cardiovascular events.