| Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a pandemic health burden that has significant implications for the physical health of the patient population, overall financial health care cost, and clinical office screening quality. A local community educational outreach program was employed to address prevention, screening, and detection of CHD to decrease the burden of disease progression. Specifically, the educational outreach program created an opportunity to enhance the local rural community's understanding, knowledge, and perceptions about health behaviors, barriers to care, and social and environmental backgrounds that can directly impact the cardiovascular health outcomes of Camden-Wyoming, Delaware. The purpose of the project was to examine if the intended community educational outreach programs can decrease population risk, increase educational awareness, and improve clinical follow-ups in a Nurse Practitioner office. The educational outreach program analyzed the effectiveness of a questionnaire-designed study to identify the pretest lack of CHD knowledge and assess posttest CHD educational improvement in participants (n=42). The health promotion model was incorporated to influence participants' self-initiated, health-related behavior and improve CHD education. The pilot study utilized the chi-square test and validated the feasibility of a Nurse Practitioner community outreach educational program with 100% of participants demonstrating increased knowledge in BMI, blood pressure, fasting glucose, and lipid levels. Thus, individual health outcomes and the overall local health care policy was favorably improved through a Nurse Practitioner led CHD educational initiative. |
