The value of sustained initiatives targeting population health appears borne out by a dip in hospitalization and mortality rates associated with a communitywide cardiovascular disease prevention program in Maine.
The program is a cooperative project of local community groups and staff at Franklin Memorial Hospital, in Farmington, Maine, to help residents of Franklin County, a rural, low-income area with more than 22,000 residents in 1970. They started out in 1974 seeking to address hypertension and later expanded their reach to cholesterol, smoking, diet and physical activity.
Researchers, who published the findings Tuesday in JAMA, studied hospitalization and mortality in the area from 1970 to 2010 to determine whether the interventions changed behaviors and improved healthcare access and health outcomes.
[For more of this story, written by Steven Ross Johnson, go to http://www.modernhealthcare.co...50113/NEWS/301139936]
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