As heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the US, researchers at the UNC Office of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention are working to evaluate and develop effective prevention programs.
HPDP’s Heart to Health team published an article in Contemporary Clinical Trials that sets the baseline for future evaluation of coronary heart disease prevention programs.
The article is the first of a two-part study that will compare counselor-delivered and web-based programs to determine which is more effective to prevent CHD.
In the study, primary investigator Stacey Sheridan, Ph.D., and HPDP researchers evaluated baseline characteristics for participants in CHD prevention programs.
Sheridan and her team conducted prevention program trials at five diverse practices in a family research network.
“The goal of Heart to Health is to provide the necessary information to make informed choices about how to best implement CHD in practice,” Sheridan said.
“It’s important because it compares the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and acceptability of two alternate ways to implement high quality CHD prevention.”
The second portion of the two studies that compares prevention programs is now well underway, and the results are scheduled to be published in 2014.