Background Little is known about the relationship between physical functional health and long-term risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) inde-pendently of known risk factors in a general population. Methods Men and women aged 40–79 years at baseline who completed a health and lifestyle questionnaire and attended a health examin-ation during 1993–97 participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer-Norfolk who were free of myocardial in-farction (MI), stroke and cancer were included. Eighteen months later, physical functional health was assessed using physical com-ponent summary (PCS) scores of Short-Form 36-item questionnaire (SF-36). The incidence of CHD was ascertained by death certifica-tion and hospital record linkage up to March 2008. Results A total of 14 222 men and women were included in the study. There were 389 incident CHD (total person-years 126 896 years). People who reported better physical functional health had significantly