Tag: Cardiovascular diseases

Making a complex intervention feel simple: tailored text messages to help people take their statins

Taking a medicine every day might seem straightforward, but for many people it is anything but. In this blog, Javiera Rosenberg shares how her PhD research explored why patients stop taking statins and how those insights led her to develop a tailored text messaging intervention to support adherence.

Javiera Rosenberg is a PhD researcher at the NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaboration: North West London, based at the Institute of Global Health Innovation. In her own words, she reflects on the behavioural science, patient co-design and digital innovation behind the intervention.

A GP is running an NHS Health Check.

Innovative approaches to prevention: Tacking the global burden of cardiovascular disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) causes 17.5 million deaths each year. Most of these deaths are from heart attacks and strokes, and many are premature. Although outstanding progress has been made in CVD awareness, prevention and treatment, three out of every 10 deaths this year will still be result of CVD.

A global epidemic, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide, affecting all regions regardless of income. Low-and middle-income countries make the largest contribution to the burden of CVD, particularly in terms of deaths in people aged 30 to 70 years, and those figures are still rising. However, CVD deaths and disability are not inevitable and up to a quarter could be avoided with more effective strategies for primary and secondary prevention.