Best Practices for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Programs | CDC | DHDSP

Best Practices for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Programs | CDC | DHDSP

In This Issue Heart disease and stroke create an enormous public health burden. Tools You Can Use Quick Fact Million Hearts® in the Community The Science of Million Hearts® Do This! Connect with us MillionHearts @MillionHeartsUS

Heart disease and stroke create an enormous public health burden. Each year, more than 1.5 million Americans have a heart attack or stroke, leading to disability and death at worst and interrupted work and play at least. Increasingly unhealthy lifestyles may be contributing to this burden. That’s why it's crucial to connect public health efforts with health care to make it easier for people to achieve and maintain good health. Evidence-based policies can nudge positive behavior changes. When joined with quality health care services, public health strategies can have even greater impacts on improving cardiovascular health. For example, barbers in Los Angeles partnered with pharmacists to help African-American men know and control their blood pressure. (Check out Million Hearts® in the Community to learn more.) When we combine widespread public health efforts with team- and evidence-based health care, everybody wins. Find strategies to use in your community in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Best Practices Guide for Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Prevention. Together, we can prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes. —Janet Wright, MD, FACCExecutive Director, Million Hearts® View CVD Prevention Guide

Tools You Can Use A new NACHC video demonstrates proper use of home blood pressure monitors. This patient-friendly video from the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) outlines clear instructions for self-measured blood pressure monitoring. Share this resource in your practice! View NACHC Video Learn ways to conduct chronic disease surveillance using electronic health record data. The Leveraging Clinical Data for Public Health and Hypertension Surveillance report uses the example of hypertension surveillance to guide public health agencies in implementing chronic disease surveillance using electronic health record data.  Read Hypertension Surveillance Report Use this calculator to assess patients’ self-reported blood pressure data and to guide treatments.  This blog post from the American Medical Association explains how health care professionals can efficiently analyze their patients’ self-measured blood pressure readings and use the data to improve diagnosis, treatment, and control. Read Blood Pressure Blog Promote kidney disease awareness with this partner toolkit. More than 1 in 7 U.S. adults have chronic kidney disease (CKD), but most people with early CKD don’t know it. Learn how to help people lower their risk for CKD and cardiovascular disease with this National Kidney Foundation toolkit. Download CKD Toolkit Quick Fact Fewer than 25% of tobacco users come away from a health care visit with counseling or medicine to help them quit—let’s change that. Download the Million Hearts® Tobacco Cessation Action Guide (PDF - 359 KB) to help people in your community quit smoking.  Million Hearts® in the Community Explore the link between air quality and CVD. Find resources and information in this blog post about the risks poor air quality pose to heart health, including key actions health professionals can take to help keep communities healthy.  Read Air Quality Blog Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana recognizes top performers for hypertension control.  Along with the World Hypertension League, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana recognized 264 primary care physicians for helping at least 70% of their patients meet health quality measures to treat high blood pressure. View Press Release Hear what some states are doing to create healthy communities and reduce CVD. Watch February’s CDC Public Health Grand Rounds webcast to find real-world examples of how practices can promote healthy lifestyles, support the ABCS (aspirin when appropriate, blood pressure control, cholesterol management, and smoking cessation), and prevent second heart attacks. View Grand Rounds Webcast Barbers and pharmacists form unique partnership to lower blood pressure among black men. This blog from National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., details a recent cluster-randomized trial in which barbers counseled patrons to either work with pharmacists to get blood pressure medicines or see their doctors and consider lifestyle changes. The pharmacist group saw significantly lower blood pressure readings. Read NIH Director's Blog The Science of Million Hearts® Improving ways to find and diagnose hypertensive patients hiding in plain sight in health centers. (Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf) Heart disease death rates decreased from 1968 to 2015, but report finds racial and geographical disparities. (MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep) Cardiac rehabilitation may lower the risk of hospitalization and mortality in patients with implanted ventricular assist devices. (JACC: Heart Failure) During 2011 to 2015, use of antihypertensive medication decreased slightly among U.S. adults with self-reported hypertension. (MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep) Most hypertensive patients do not receive clinical advice to reduce sodium intake, study shows. (MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep) Rates of heart disease and stroke death are dropping faster for Northern California Kaiser Permanente members than rest of nation. (Am J of Med) Do This! On March 29, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the FDA Nutrition Innovation Strategy, which will take a fresh look at what can be done to reduce preventable nutrition-related death and disease. The initiative, still in early stages of development, will include a focus on lowering sodium in the marketplace through short-term voluntary sodium targets for the food industry. Learn More About the New FDA Nutrition Innovation Strategy