POPULATION HEALTH: You have to keep after prevention interventions or positive effects decrease

Perhaps the most critical loss was the cessation of computer entry systems, reversion to paper data monitoring, and associated inability to reliably measure individual and population outcomes against past results and future targets.

Residents of rural Franklin County, Maine, were compared with the rest of the state on mortality and smoking rates in this decades-long study.  An association was found between improved outcomes and the availability of risk factor improvement programs.  The study looked at the impact of program cutbacks.  The authors found that decades of health gains “were lost within 5 to 10 years of cutbacks of leadership and other programmatic support.”

Source: Onion, D.K., Prior, R.E., Record, N.B., and others. (2019, June 14). Assessment of mortality and smoking rates before and after reduction in community-wide prevention programs in rural Maine. JAMA Network Open, 2(6).  Click here for free full text:  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2735767  Posted by AHA Resource Center (312) 422-2050, rc@aha.org