Denver Health Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Prevention Program

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality in Colorado.[1] This is especially true in the Latino population who are at greater risk for CVD compared to non-Latino whites, and suffer more premature CVD deaths.[2] Among persons less than 34 years, Latinos are four times more likely to die from heart disease than non-Latino whites, a disparity that lessens but does not disappear with age (1.5 ratios among persons 55 - 64 yrs old). Recently, the INTERHEART study demonstrated that 90% of the population attributable risk is due to established modifiable risk factors (smoking, dyslipidemia, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, psychosocial factors, daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, regular alcohol consumption and regular physical activity).[3] Many individuals in the general population have one or more risk factors for CVD and over 90% of CVD events occur in individuals with at least one risk factor,[3, 4] with few events occurring in individuals with no risk factors, thus supporting the notion of focusing prevention activities on individuals at higher risk for CVD.

Reducing the risk of CVD is part of Colorado's strategic plan. Programs are needed that offer provide enhanced patient-centered CVD prevention services using paraprofessionals and thus assisting health care providers (i.e., physicians, midlevels) in addressing preventive health care issues. Early identification of CVD risk is paramount in order to reach those who need the appropriate treatment. In this regard, NCEP guidelines recommend the utilization of the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) as the basis to identify patients with an increased 10-year risk for CVD events.

Despite evidence of the effectiveness of preventive services and the development of published national guidelines,[5, 6] rates of delivery of preventive services remain low.[7] The most common barriers identified are the lack of time during the office visit, inadequate insurance reimbursement, patient refusal to discuss or comply with recommendations, and lack of physician expertise in counseling techniques.[8-12] At Denver Community Health Services (DCHS), a department of Denver Health (DH), an additional barrier includes socioeconomic issues associated with a low-income population with ethnically diverse issues. Thus, delivering CVD preventive services often takes a lower priority during an office visit in a busy clinical practice. However, proactively identifying individuals at risk of CVD and involving them in their own care should increase awareness of CVD risk factors and as such assist in reducing the burden of CVD in the community.

Denver Public Health (DPH) in collaboration with DCHS will implement a comprehensive cardiovascular risk assessment and prevention treatment plan among three westside community health centers. In order to improve CVD risk reduction, this demonstration project will a) develop a CVD registry to be able to identify at risk individuals, b) engage high-risk patients to participate in CVD prevention activities, c) implement a series of evidence-based prevention strategies to be offered in the clinic and community, d) perform both process and outcome evaluations of this demonstration project, and e) compare biologic results (e.g., FRS, lipid levels) with sites not participating in the intervention to assess the effectiveness of our intervention.