Self-Management of Cardiovascular Disease

The proposed project is a multi-media campaign to assist people in the self-management of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors. Specifically, the campaign will promote diagnosis, treatment and effective self-management of CVD in adults; will increase knowledge about CVD and its risk factors, and will provide on-going support for families and caregivers. This series has the potential to meet urgent medical and public health needs, as well as to offer commercially viable products to a wide audience. In Phase I, we will interview patients, caregivers, and professionals who have experience with CVD and its risk factors. There will be a special focus on African Americans and Hispanic/Latino Americans. We will analyze the content of these interviews. From the content we will generate creative plans for a video component, an accompanying resource guides, and a prototype web module. These creative plans will be reviewed first by our Board of Advisors, and then by focus groups. We will revise the creative plans accordingly. The creative plans and the prototype will be quantitatively and qualitatively tested to ensure that they meet the informational as well as the supportive needs of adults with or at risk for CVD, and their caregivers. In Phase II, we will produce the video, the resource guide, and a fully functioning web module based on the concepts validated in Phase I research. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: The completed video, resource guide, and web module will be distributed through physicians, health professionals and organizations that serve CVD patients, as well as Internet health websites, corporate Intranet sites, and Internet Web Portals. State of the Art has successfully marketed many other patient education materials to this market and already has contacts and established relationships to assist in the marketing.