Category Disease Prevention & Control

Cardiovascular disease, heart disease, and coronary heart disease may sound similar but they are not one in the same. This fact sheet will help you understand how these conditions differ.

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New Guideline Focuses on Causes of TIAs, Other Stroke Precursors

U.S. Pharmacist (2021) CC

Atlanta, GA—New stroke guidelines strongly encourage clinicians to prescribe antithrombotic therapy, including antiplatelet medications or anticoagulant medications, for nearly all at-risk patients who don’t have contraindications.

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Challenges in management and prevention of ischemic heart disease in low socioeconomic status people in LLMICs

Gupta, R.; Yusuf, S. BMC Medicine (2019) CC

Cardiovascular diseases, principally ischemic heart disease (IHD), are the most important cause of death and disability in the majority of low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs). In these countries, IHD mortality rates are significantly greater in individuals of a low socioeconomic status (... more

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Preventing the next Pandemic: the Case for Investing in Circulatory Health

Global Coalition for Circulatory Health (2024) CC

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a continuous and robust impact on world health. The resulting COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating physical, mental and fiscal impact on the millions of people living with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), as they have a higher risk of severe illness... more

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Global Heart & Circulatory Diseases Factsheet

British Heart Foundation (2023) CC

Heart & Circulatory Diseases (Cardiovascular Disease; CVD) Heart and circulatory diseases is an umbrella term for all diseases of the heart and circulation. It includes everything from conditions that are inherited or that a person is born with, to those that develop later, such as coronary heart d... more

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Epidemiology of Peripheral Artery Disease and Polyvascular Disease

Aday A.W.; Matsushita, K. Circulation Research (2021) CC

Atherosclerotic lower-extremity peripheral artery disease (PAD) is increasingly recognized as an important cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality that affects more than 230 million people worldwide. Traditional cardiovascular risk factors, including advanced age, smoking, and diabetes, are ... more

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Hypertension WHO

World Health Organization WHO (2024) CC

Hypertension, also known as high or raised blood pressure, is a condition in which the blood vessels have persistently raised pressure. Blood is carried from the heart to all parts of the body in the vessels. Each time the heart beats, it pumps blood into the vessels. Blood pressure is created by th... more

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Preventing and responding to acute watery diarrhoea (AWD)/Cholera - For kitchens and cooking areas in schools and children centres

Health Cluster; World Health Organization WHO (2023) C_WHO

What you should do as head of school or child centre to prevent cholera: Educate all staff and pupils on the common cholera transmission routes and how to prevent it. Educate all kitchen staff on how to handle food and cooking utensils. Emphasis the key points below: o All kitchen staff MUST wa... more

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UNICEF: Protecting Ourselves from Cholera
recommended

UN Children's Fund UNICEF (2023) CC

This flipchart is a visual support for community workers, health workers, emergency workers, and in general all staff conducting face-to-face communication in response to a cholera outbreak. How to use it? The flipchart is intended as a support for animating individual or group discussions on ... more

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Cardiovascular disease risk profile and management practices in 45 low-income and middle-income countries: A cross-sectional study of nationally representative individual-level survey data

Peiris, D.; Ghosh, A.; Manne-Goehler, J. et al. PLoS Medicine (2021) CC

Global cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden is high and rising, especially in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Focussing on 45 LMICs, we aimed to determine (1) the adult population’s median 10-year predicted CVD risk, including its variation within countries by socio-demographic char... more

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Cardiovascular Diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa Compared to High-Income Countries: An Epidemiological Perspective

Yuyun, M.F.; Sliwa, K.; Kengne, A.P. et al. Global Heart (2020) CC

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the second common cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounting for about 35% of all deaths, after a composite of communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases. Despite prior perception of low NCDs mortality rates, current evidence suggests t... more

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Infrastructure, policy and regulatory interventions to increase physical activity to prevent cardiovascular diseases and diabetes: a systematic review

Durão, S.; Burns, J.; Schmidt, B. et al. BMC Public Health (2023) CC

Background Noncommunicable diseases are major contributors to morbidity and mortality worldwide. Modifying the risk factors for these conditions, such as physical inactivity, is thus essential. Addressing the context or circumstances in which physical activity occurs may promote physical activity a...t a population level. We assessed the effects of infrastructure, policy or regulatory interventions for increasing physical activity. Methods We searched PubMed, Embase and clinicaltrials.gov to identify randomised controlled trials (RCTs), controlled before-after (CBAs) studies, and interrupted time series (ITS) studies assessing population-level infrastructure or policy and regulatory interventions to increase physical activity. We were interested in the effects of these interventions on physical activity, body weight and related measures, blood pressure, and CVD and type 2 diabetes morbidity and mortality, and on other secondary outcomes. Screening and data extraction was done in duplicate, with risk of bias was using an adapted Cochrane risk of bias tool. Due to high levels of heterogeneity, we synthesised the evidence based on effect direction. Results We included 33 studies, mostly conducted in high-income countries. Of these, 13 assessed infrastructure changes to green or other spaces to promote physical activity and 18 infrastructure changes to promote active transport. The effects of identified interventions on physical activity, body weight and blood pressure varied across studies (very low certainty evidence); thus, we remain very uncertain about the effects of these interventions. Two studies assessed the effects of policy and regulatory interventions; one provided free access to physical activity facilities and showed that it may have beneficial effects on physical activity (low certainty evidence). The other provided free bus travel for youth, with intervention effects varying across studies (very low certainty evidence). Conclusions Evidence from 33 studies assessing infrastructure, policy and regulatory interventions for increasing physical activity showed varying results. The certainty of the evidence was mostly very low, due to study designs included and inconsistent findings between studies. Despite this drawback, the evidence indicates that providing access to physical activity facilities may be beneficial; however this finding is based on only one study. Implementation of these interventions requires full consideration of contextual factors, especially in low resource settings. more

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Socioeconomic status and risk of cardiovascular disease in 20 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiologic (PURE) study

Rosengren, A.; Smyth, A.; Rangarajan, S. et al. The Lancet Global Health (2019) CC

Socioeconomic status is associated with differences in risk factors for cardiovascular disease incidence and outcomes, including mortality. However, it is unclear whether the associations between cardiovascular disease and common measures of socioeconomic status—wealth and education—differ among... more

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Selection of essential medicines for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases in low and middle income countries

Bazargani, Y.T.; Ugurlu, M.; Leufkens, H.G.M. et al. BMC Cardiovascular Disorders (2018) CC

The incidence and mortality of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in low and middle income countries (LMICs) have been increasing, while access to CVDs medicines is suboptimal. We assessed selection of essential medicines for the prevention and treatment of CVDs on national essential medicines lists (NE... more

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Quality of the Indian clinical practice guidelines for the management of cardiovascular conditions

Dhurjati, R.; Sagar, V.; Kanukula, R. et al. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Open (2022) CC

To assess the quality of Indian clinical practice guidelines (CPG)s for the management of cardiovascular conditions, MEDLINE, Embase, Google Scholar and websites of relevant medical associations and government organisations were searched, from inception until August 2020, to identify Indian CPGs for... more

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Quality of stroke guidelines in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

Yaria, J.; Gil, A.; Makanjuola, A. et al. Bulletin of the World Health Organization (2021) C_WHO

Objective: To identify gaps in national stroke guidelines that could be bridged to enhance the quality of stroke care services in low- and middle-income countries. Methods: We systematically searched medical databases and websites of medical societies and contacted international organizations. Co... more

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Public knowledge of cardiovascular disease and response to acute cardiac events in three municipalities in Brazil

Bartlett, E. S.; Flor, L.S.; Souto Medeiros, D. et al. Open Heart (2020) CC

Objective: To conduct a landscape assessment of public knowledge of cardiovascular disease risk factors and acute myocardial infarction symptoms, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) awareness and training in three underserved communities in Brazil. Metho... more

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Prevention and management of CVD in LMICs: why do ethnicity, culture, and context matter?

Anand, S.; Bradshaw, C.; Prabhakaran, D. BMC Medicine (2020) CC

Background Low- and middle-income countries now experience the highest prevalence and mortality rates of cardiovascular disease. Main text While improving the availability and delivery of proven, effective therapies will no doubt mitigate this burden, we posit that studies evaluating cardiovasc... more

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Framework for an Integrated Multisectoral Response to TB, HIV, STIS and Hepatitis in the WHO African Region 2021–2030

World Health Organization WHO (2024) C_WHO

Disability inclusive shelter programming enables persons with disabilities to contribute more to their communities, participate more in consultations and decision-making, and facilitate their own protection. The key concepts include: Disability inclusive shelter programming is both a process and an ... more

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