Behavioral Counseling Interventions to Promote a Healthy Diet and Physical Activity for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Adults With Cardiovascular Risk Factors: US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement
Guidance from the US perspective makes recommendations on behavioural and dietary advice for cardiovascular disease prevention. Interventions are usually intensive, with multiple contacts that include either individual or group sessions over extended periods.
Source:
Journal of the American Medical Association
SPS commentary:
The evidence review facilitating the production of these recommendations has been published in conjunction.
A related editorial covers potential barriers to the implementation of this guidance, including the fact that there is an expanded definition of cardiovascular risk factors in this update, and therefore behavioural counselling is recommended for a large proportion of, perhaps most, US adults. Delivering behavioural counselling interventions to this large population would require substantial health systems change. It also notes that additional research is needed to test the effectiveness of telehealth interventions and self-monitoring technology, such as fitness trackers, on long-term cardiovascular health outcomes.