Objective: To explore potential effective measures for lowering incidence and mortality of stroke in rural community population of China.
Methods: Beijing Fangshan Cardiovascular Prevention Program (BFCP), under whole population and high risk individuals strategies with measures of health education and hypertension control, were launched in 1991 in five communities including intervention communities (IC), about 66,000 residents, and control communities (CC), about 54,000 residents, in Fangshan, Beijing suburb.
Result: Incidences of stroke averaged 235.23 per 100,000 and 289.22 per 100,000, for IC and CC respectively, with a statistically significant difference, and mortalities of stroke averaged 80.63 per 100,000 and 98.01 per 100,000, for IC and CC respectively, with a statistically significant difference, during years of 1992 to 1999. The net change of stroke incidence was 126.13 per 100,000 in IC versus CC, with a statistically significant difference. Incidences of stroke increased by 11.63% and 75.27%, for IC and CC respectively, while mortalities of stroke decreased by 46.80% and 22.82%, respectively, for IC and CC from years of 1992 to 1999.
Conclusion: BFCP has yielded obvious effect on controlling incidence and mortality of stroke in rural community population, but the trend of stroke incidence increasing was still not restrained radically.