Peripheral arterial disease (PAD), a common manifestation of atherosclerosis, is an important healthcare problem with considerable morbidity and mortality. Intermittent claudication (IC) is the commonest symptomatic manifestation of this disease. This thesis investigates the prevalence of PAD in South Asians (people originating from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and Blacks (Black African, Black Caribbean) and makes ethnic comparisons of its associations with traditional cardiovascular risk factors, inflammatory and haemostatic biomarkers and markers of angiogenesis in these ethnic groups. This thesis also makes associations between common carotid intima media thickness, a marker of pre-clinical atherosclerosis, traditional cardiovascular risk factors and novel biomarkers. Furthermore this thesis validates translated versions of the Edinburgh Claudication Questionnaire into Punjabi and Urdu.