COMMUNITY EDUCATION FOR CARDIOVASCULAR-DISEASE PREVENTION - MORBIDITYAND MORTALITY RESULTS FROM THE MINNESOTA HEART HEALTH-PROGRAM

The Minnesota Heart Health Program was a community trial of cardiovasc ular disease prevention methods that was conducted from 1980 to 1990 i n three Upper Midwestern communities with three matched comparison com munities. A 5- to 6-year intervention program used community-wide and individual health education in an attempt to decrease population risk. A major hypothesis was that the incidence of validated fatal and nonf atal coronary heart disease and stroke in 30- to 74-year-old men and w omen would decline differentially in the education communities after t he health promotion program was introduced. This hypothesis was invest igated using mixed-model regression. The intervention effect was model ed as a series of annual departures from a linear secular trend after a 2-year lag from the start of the intervention program. In the educat ion communities, 2,394 cases of coronary heart disease and 818 cases o f stroke occurred, with 2,526 and 739 cases, respectively, being seen in the comparison communities, The overall decline in coronary heart d isease incidence was 1.8 percent per year in men (p=0.03) and 3.6 perc ent per year in women (p=0.007). For stroke, there were no significant secular trends, The authors recently published findings showing minim al effects of sustained intervention on risk factor levels, In the cur rent report, there was no evidence of a significant intervention effec t on morbidity or mortality, either for coronary heart disease or for stroke.