Hearts for Life: a community program on heart health promotion

"Hearts for Life" was a community-based project designed to identify cardiovascular risk behaviours and change them through an educational intervention. 1,016 healthy volunteers completed a series of questionnaires which provided a coronary risk profile. They received individual risk profiles and attended small group educational sessions about how to reduce risk behaviours. Follow-up questionnaires were completed three months after the educational interventions to identify changes in risk behaviours. Fifty-two percent of participants were in the moderate to high risk range for the development of heart disease. The program resulted in a significant increase (p < .01) in knowledge about coronary risk issues. Significant changes occurred in those individuals who initially reported smoking behaviours, high risk eating behaviours, high stress levels, inactivity, and obesity. This educational program on cardiovascular disease improved knowledge and reduced risk behaviours in healthy adults over a short time period.