Program focuses on a healthy heart

A cardiovascular diseases prevention program launched in Jeddah has two strategies, said the vice president of the Saudi Epidemiology Association at a preventative medicine and public health care conference in the coastal city on Tuesday. According to Dr. Rajaa Al-Raddadi, an estimated 16.7 million or 29 percent of total global deaths resulted from various forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD), many of which could be prevented by changing lifestyle risk factors like unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and smoking. She explained that more than 50 percent of deaths and disabilities happened because of heart disease and strokes, which together kill over 12 million people each year. The strategies will be targeting unhealthy behavior of the public and risk factors for CVDs. “This can be cut by a combination of simple cost-effective national efforts and individual actions to reduce major risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and smoking,” she explained. The main objective of the program is to improve overall cardiovascular health, which will reduce the risk of coronary artery disease. Al-Raddadi emphasized that the area of work included awareness on cardiovascular disease risk factors and the development of tools for monitoring and evaluation. “We need to strengthen the capacity of health personnel for identification of the major risk factors and use a comprehensive approach for health promotion and primary prevention. In addition, we should conduct periodic research activities as per the result of the monitoring and evaluation,” she said. Dr. Areej Saad Alowfi, clinical preventive services supervisor at the National Guard Health Affairs (NGHA) also stressed on maintaining individual’s health. She said the NGHA preventive clinic had a well-structured, comprehensive program assessing individual health risks and delivering personalized preventive care measures. She explained that several social programs had been initiated, such as physical exercise classes for obese women, smoking cessation counseling and seasonal flu immunization according to the findings of the clinic.