PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

The major European and American community intervention studies of the last two decades have heightened the interest in being able to predict cardiovascular disease. From a number of cohort studies risk factors especially of coronary heart disease (CHD) have been identified (hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and cigarette smoking in the first line) which can be used to estimate expected incidence. We analysed survey data of the German Cardiovascular Prevention Study, DCP (1984/5 - 1991/2) in order to predict coronary mortality in German populations and to determine potential interventive effects on CHD mortality and morbidity. Employing logistic regression analysis it can be demonstrated, that the coefficients published by the Erica Research Group (1988, 1991) for Western Europe (ERICA-WESST) allow for a reasonable estimate of CHD mortality in Germany as compared to vital statistics. The combined estimates of fatal and non-fatal events, based on the coefficients from the Paris and Framingham studies and the American Pooling Project, however, vary greatly. Applying the ERICA-WEST coefficients to net-effects as achieved in the GCP it can be shown that a population-wide intervention programme as well as a strategy directed at high borderline-values are able to reduce CHD mortality in middle-aged men by almost 10%. However, trend projections and estimates of the interventive effects alike have to be interpreted with great care. At present only the ERICA-WEST coefficients should be used for simulation of CHD mortality in (West) Germany. A direct prediction of morbidity for the entire country is not feasible.