The new awards extend to12 the NHLBI's nationwide network of community-based organizations known as Enhanced Dissemination and Utilization Centers (EDUCs). The EDUC program was launched in 2001 to implement focused heart-health education strategies in high risk communities.

"These projects take what we have learned about the prevention, identification, and treatment of cardiovascular disease and apply that knowledge where it is most needed in communities with the highest heart disease and stroke death rates," said NHLBI Director Claude Lenfant, M.D.

Heart disease and stroke remain the first and third leading causes of death in the U.S. However, certain geographic areas and racial/ethnic groups are disproportionately affected. The Federal Government's Healthy People 2010 initiative seeks to eliminate those disparities and improve health care for all.

"The EDUC program is a key part of the NHLBI's agenda to achieve the goals of Healthy People 2010. All of the EDUCs are in health service areas (HSAs) where the death rate for coronary heart disease and/or stroke is in the top 15 percent of HSAs nationally," said Robinson Fulwood, Ph.D., Senior Manager, Public Health Program Development in NHLBI's Office of Prevention, Education, and Control.

The new projects target high-risk communities in urban and rural areas in Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, Ohio, and North Carolina. The EDUCs emphasize the forging of community health partnerships to meet individual project goals. Objectives are achieved through a variety of creative approaches including training peer health educators; conducting awareness-raising town-hall meetings, community-based screening and referral programs, and nutrition and physical
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Contact: NHLBI Communications Office
301-496- 4236
NIH/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
9-Oct-2002