New report: Engaging those at greatest risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD)

The ALLIANCE has published a new report into improving engagement with communities on cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention.

The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) was asked by Scottish Government and NHS Inform to conduct engagement into the public’s awareness of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors; their preferences for accessing CVD prevention-focused information; and their experiences of using this information to take action on their cardiovascular health.

Additionally, to address inequalities within CVD risk factor awareness and management, the ALLIANCE conducted targeted engagement with groups at increased risk due to genetic, socioeconomic, lifestyle and other systemic factors, including South Asian communities, women, and people living with socioeconomic deprivation. This engagement also endeavoured to address specific challenges faced by digitally excluded people.

This new report (which you can download at the bottom of this page) summarises the learning from this engagement, which was conducted through four in-person and three online focus groups, speaking directly with 71 participants across all target engagement groups, from November 2023 to March 2024.

This engagement has highlighted that people’s preferences for accessing health information are shifting away from traditional text-based websites, towards shorter, video-based, and culturally relevant content on a greater range of digital and social media platforms. This change highlights the need for a new prevention strategy that understand these trends; reaches people with less clinical and more accessible language; communicates creatively through storytelling; and that supports direct community outreach to deliver culturally tailored and personalised support. These insights align with Scotland’s Heart Disease Action Plan’s goal of expanding community models of care to manage cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors.

There is no universal solution for CVD prevention, and this report does not recommend any universal approach to reach all communities in Scotland. However, by considering a more diverse range of community experiences and implementing new and varied strategies, health information providers can better engage these communities and encourage proactive steps towards better cardiovascular health.

The findings from this report have been considered in the development of NHS Inform’s new Cardiovascular Hub, and further work is planned to establish appropriate terminology to better suit audiences (for example, the term cardiovascular disease was felt to be not well understood, but some user testing is required to agree an alternative). The feedback from this engagement has also been shared as part of a wider review of NHS Inform’s public-facing information resources, and will help shape the recommendations from this review.

This report is also being used by Scottish Government to inform future approaches to better support both communities at greater risk and the wider population under Scotland’s CVD prevention agenda.

End of page.