Community education for cardiovascular disease prevention: risk factor changes in the Minnesota Heart Health Program.

Objectives: The Minnesota Heart Health Program is a 13-year research and demonstration project to reduce morbidity and mortality from coronary heart disease in whole communities.

Methods: Three pairs of communities were matched on size and type; each pair had one education site and one comparison site. After baseline surveys, a 5- to 6-year program of mass media, community organization, and direct education for risk reduction was begun in the education communities, whereas surveys continued in all sites.

Community-wide prevention strategies: evaluation design of the Minnesota Heart Health Program.

The Minnesota Heart Health Program (MHHP) is a community-based research and demonstration program designed to accelerate population-wide changes in coronary risk factors and disease. MHHP is on-going in three pairs of communities in Minnesota, North and South Dakota. To strengthen inference of program effects, its basic design involves elements of control, repetition, sensitive trend measurements and evaluation of the effects of program components.

Community-wide prevention of cardiovascular disease: education strategies of the Minnesota Heart Health Program.

The Minnesota Heart Health Program (MHHP) is a research and demonstration project of population-wide primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Study goals are to achieve reductions in cardiovascular disease risk factors and morbidity and mortality in three education communities compared with three reference communities. The program in the first of the three intervention communities, Mankato, has been operating for 3 of the planned 5 years.

Organization for a community cardiovascular health program: experiences from the Minnesota Heart Health Program.

The World Health Organization has emphasized the importance of community participation as a keystone of primary health care and in meeting their goal of health for all. This article reports on the first three years of experience in a community-based approach to cardiovascular health. The project involves three communities totaling almost a quarter of a million inhabitants with matched comparison communities.

Early childhood experience in Nepal: a study of sickness, treatment and mortality.

This article reports on a longitudinal study of almost 7,000 children under six years in selected villages in Nepal, giving their morbidity and mortality history, treatments given and costs involved. The study suggests that about two children out of three are defined as sick by their mothers in any given year and that treatment is sought for about 40 percent of sickness in small children. Three of four children treated are treated by scientific medicine, that is by physicians, nurses or pharmacists.

Family planning field research projects: balancing internal against external validity.

This report discusses the experience of a two-year family planning and maternal/child health project in Nepal. Although the project was planned as an experimental field research endeavor, a series of unanticipated events repeatedly compromised the internal validity of the project and forced design changes. While unexpected events are common in the history of most field projects, they present the research evaluator with the fundamental dilemma of trying to maintain a high degree of internal validity without sacrificing external validity.

Promoting health and preventing disease some thoughts for HMOs.

Many of the predisposing factors to current morbidity and mortality relate to societally approved behaviors. Attempts to intervene or change behavioral patterns after a chronic condition is clinically established are limited in effectiveness. Because health maintenance as a conceptual activity occurs outside the medical care delivery system, organizations committed to health maintenance must be active in the school, workplace, and the community if they are to be effective.

Socio-educational influences on nepali women and their association with innovative values and behaviors.

The introduction of health and family planning services in developing countries often requires extensive changes in the values and behaviors of the women of those countries. A better understanding of the factors influencing change in rural women would provide a stronger scientific base for the introduction of health services.The authors gathered data from 1,417 rural women in Nepal.