title: [An evaluation of the impact of cardiovascular disease prevention in Portugal (1980-1996). A longitudinal Gompertzian analysis of mortality].
abstract: The behaviour of cardiovascular diseases has suffered important modifications in recent years. There have been increases in mortality and morbidity in some countries while others have seen stabilization and even reduction. In the countries where we have observed a reduction in cardiovascular mortality, the reasons are multiple: efficacy of prevention measures; improvement of environmental conditions; increase in survival; and competitiveness with other causes of death. In order to ascertain whether a certain tendency is real or fictitious, we need to use techniques that allow the evaluation of the true evolution, to study the effect of environmental factors (not genetic) and the variability of internal resistance (vitality) to disease. Based on the longitudinal Gompertzian analysis of mortality for ischemic heart disease (IHD) and cerebrovascular disease (CVD) between 1980 and 1996, it was possible to observe a reduction in mortality for both causes, which was more obvious in the case of CHD, and that the impact of the improvement in environmental conditions (not genetic) was higher in CVD versus IHD. The prevention of CVD was more efficient in men (42.8% vs 29.7%) than in women, while in IHD the most efficient prevention was 20.6% in women versus 14.9% in men, comparing the data of 1996 and 1980. During this period, the environmental influences (not genetic) were responsible for the reduction in mortality for IHD in 2.7% of men and 4.3% of women, while in CVD we observed a reduction in mortality of 7.5% in men and 4.5% in women.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Higiene e Medicina, Faculdade de Medicina de Coimbra.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Cardoso
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000401:mortality / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends; D011174:Portugal / Q000453:epidemiology; D017678:Sex Distribution