Heartbeat: Sustainable Development Goals
“Don’t break your heart”: A campaign to prevent hypertension Viktoria Weihermann, Thiago Augusto da Silva, Lucas Eduardo Venâncio IFMSA-Brazil Hypertension is a major public health challenge worldwide. It is a high prevalent disease, strongly associated with increased morbidity and mortality. As an example, approximately 7.1 million deaths yearly can be directly attributed to poor control of blood pressure [1]. Besides, some projections show an increase of 60% in the overall number of adults with hypertension until 2025 [2]. In developing countries this number is even bigger, reaching 80% [2]. Furthermore, these same projections estimate that almost three-quarters of the world’s hypertensive population will be in developing countries, such as Brazil [2]. Analyzing the national context in Brazil, data from the National Health Survey of 2013 found that 22.8% of the population have blood pressure measurements ≥ 140/90 mmHg [3]. Aware of the importance of preventing hypertension, members of IFMSA Brazil - Local Committee UFPR, organized a campaign to provide information, measure blood pressure and alert about the risks of hypertension to the population of Curitiba, Brazil.
46
The campaign was called “Don’t break your heart”, and took place on March 26th. Three places for this intervention were selected: Botanical Garden of Curitiba, Largo da Ordem and Barigui Park. The event was announced in social medias for the students and registrations were opened online, with 88 medical students of UFPR (Federal Paraná University), from all graduation years, been enrolled. In this manner, the interaction between students was stimulated, giving them the opportunity to improve knowledge, making friendship and sharing different experiences from Medical School. Before the intervention, on March 25th, a special training was offered to students, where a cardiology professor gave a lecture about hypertension and taught them how to check blood pressure. On March 26th, the event occurred all day in the places mentioned above. The campaign reached 846 people, all of which had the
blood pressure checked and answered a brief questionnaire about hypertension. The collected data is being used in an epidemiological study of hypertension applied to local population. Preliminary results revealed a prevalence of 41% of hypertensives. An inspiring outcome of this campaign came from first-year students, which, in their freshman year, have little contact with patients during classes. In the event, however, they had the opportunity to interact with the community and help people. Some participants reported that this campaign was their first contact with the community as medical students. They also remarked that the experience was a motivation to keep pursuing their dream to become doctors. On the other hand, even sixth year students reported that the campaign was a rare opportunity to interact with the community, since there is a the lack of social action in our Medical School. Currently, we are working on the idea of turning this campaign on an annual event, as a permanent project, giving more students the opportunity to participate and reach people of other communities.
References: [1] Nature Web Collection: Hypertension. Available: http://www.nature.com/reviews/collection/hypertension/index.html. 2017. [2] CHEN, Jing. Epidemiology of hypertension and chronic kidney disease in China. Current opinion in nephrology and hypertension, v. 19, n. 3, p. 278, 2010. [3] MALTA, Deborah Carvalho et al. Prevalence of high blood pressure measured in the Brazilian population, National Health Survey, 2013. Sao Paulo Medical Journal, v. 134, n. 2, p. 163-170, 2016.
medical students worldwide