CDC National Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Program

Oregon
Capacity Building

The Oregon Department of Human Services—Health Services began receiving funds from CDC in 2000 to support a state heart disease and stroke prevention program.

Burden of Heart Disease and Stroke

• Nearly 1 out of 4 deaths in Oregon are due to heart disease. (National Vital Statistics Report, 2009.)
• 6,620 Oregonians died from heart disease in 2006 (21.1% of total deaths in Oregon). (National Vital Statistics Report, 2009.)
• 1,978 Oregonians died from stroke in 2006 (6.3% of total deaths in Oregon). (National Vital Statistics Report, 2009.)

See the Oregon Department of Human Services report, The Burden of Heart Disease and Stroke in Oregon 2007, [PDF–720K] and the Northwest Regional Stroke Network report, Burden of Stroke in the Pacific Northwest—August 2008, [PDF–692K] for more burden statistics.

• According to 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey results, adults in Oregon reported having the following risk factors for heart disease and stroke:
  
  • 26.5% had high blood pressure
  • 37.6% of those screened reported having high blood cholesterol
  • 6.9% had diabetes
  • 16.9% were current smokers
  • 62.0% were overweight or obese (Body Mass Index greater than or equal to 25.0)
  • 43.7% reported no exercise in the prior 30 days
  • 73.0% ate fruit and vegetables less than 5 times a day

Key Responsibilities

• Facilitate collaboration among public and private sector partners, such as managed care organizations, health insurers, federally funded health centers, businesses, unions, school systems, priority population organizations, and emergency response agencies.
• Define the heart disease and stroke burden and assess existing population–based strategies for primary and secondary prevention of heart disease and stroke within the state.
• Develop and update a comprehensive state plan for heart disease and stroke prevention with emphasis on developing heart–healthy policies, changing physical and social environments, and eliminating disparities (e.g., based on geography, gender, race or ethnicity, or socioeconomic status).
• Identify culturally appropriate approaches to promote cardiovascular health with racial, ethnic, and other priority populations.
• Use population-based public health strategies to increase public awareness of the signs and symptoms of heart diseases and stroke, the urgency of early treatment for heart disease and stroke, and the need to call 9–1–1.

State Highlights

• The Oregon Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (OHDSP) Program is a partner in the Healthy Work Sites Initiative, which has taken the lead in bringing sodium reduction into focus for partner agencies. The primary policy goal is for all state agencies to implement healthy vending guidelines. The Initiative is a collaborative intervention with Diabetes Prevention and Control, Arthritis, Asthma, Comprehensive Cancer, and Tobacco Control programs to provide technical assistance and tools to employers across the state to assess and implement workplace wellness policies for the prevention, early detection, and self management of chronic disease. The Initiative surveys state employees every two years, in collaboration with the Public Employees Benefits Board (PEBB) and the Oregon Educators Benefits Board (OEBB). This survey, modeled after the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, is a tool for monitoring the health of the state employee population and provides important information for future work site policy objectives. For example, PEBB and OEBB now provide Weight Watchers as a covered benefit at no cost to members as a result of the high obesity rates identified by the survey among their populations. The programs also survey employers to identify policies and environmental supports for health at Oregon work sites. Over the long term, this survey will capture changes in the presence of policies and environmental supports for health in Oregon work sites.
•  The Healthy Communities program provides sub-grants to local health authorities by pooling resources from the Heart Disease and Stroke, Diabetes, Arthritis, Asthma, Comprehensive Cancer, and Tobacco programs to build capacity at the local level to implement policy, system, and environmental changes that address chronic disease risk factors. Policies include automatic referrals to quitlines and self-management programs; use of sick time by county employees to take self-management courses; smoke-free guidelines; establishment of work site wellness programs, including self-management courses as a covered benefit in some insurance products in the state; establishing healthy food guidelines for meetings; and including WIC and senior food vouchers as accepted tender at farmers’ markets. Due to its geographic reach, the long-term outcomes of this project are anticipated to include an overall reduction of heart disease and stroke burden, with an emphasis on rural and low-income communities.
• Oregon passed a menu-labeling law effective January 1, 2010, and the OHDSP Program collaborated with partners to write administrative rules that included a requirement for sodium content to be incorporated into the labeling.
• Oregon continues to work with private and public payers to develop systems for reimbursement for Living Well programs (Oregon’s self management education program).

For more information visit the Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention program in Oregon.

To view county-level data, please visit our interactive Web site.