The North Karelia Youth Project. A community-based intervention study on CVD risk factors among 13- to 15-year-old children: Study design and preliminary findings

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the major cause of mortality and morbidity in most of the industrialized world. Their prevention may be possible through reduction of well-established risk factors: smoking, elevated serum cholesterol, and hypertension. Several preventive trials among adults are under way. Ultimately, however, we should aim at preventing the development of risk factors in childhood. An intervention study begun in the county of North Karelia, Finland, aimed to test the feasibility and effects of a comprehensive school- and community-based program to reduce risk factors during adolescence. The target population is the children of North Karelia who were, at the outset of the program, in the seventh grade (13 years). Two schools received intensive intervention; the others received general county-wide intervention. A matched county was used as reference. The baseline survey in autumn 1978 in three matched pairs of schools involved approximately 1,000 children, their parents and teachers, and information about school diets. The participation rates of children and parents was more than 99%. A similar survey will be carried out among the same subjects after the 2-year intervention period. A high serum cholesterol level (5.1 mmol/liter—equivalent to 197 mg/dl) among the children studied was an outstanding finding of the baseline survey. Study design, methods of intervention, and other results of the baseline survey are presented.