This study examines participation by residents of a rural community in programs implemented as part of The Heart of New Ulm (HONU) Project, a population-based cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention initiative. The study compares participation rates for the various interventions to assess which were the most engaging in the priority community and identifies factors that differentiate participants vs. nonparticipants. Participation data were merged with electronic health record (EHR) data representing the larger community population to enable an analysis of participation in the context of the entire community. HONU individual-level interventions engaged 44% of adult residents in the community. Participation ranked as follows: (1) heart health screenings (37% of adult residents), (2) a year-long community weight loss intervention (12% of adult residents), (3) community health challenges (10% of adult residents), and (4) a phone coaching program for invited high CVD-risk residents (enrolled 6% of adult residents). Interventions that yielded the highest engagement were those that had significant staffing and recruited participants over several months, often with many opportunities to participate or register. Compared to nonparticipants, HONU participants were significantly older and a higher proportion were female, married, overweight or obese, and had high cholesterol. Participants also had a lower prevalence of smoking and diabetes than nonparticipants. Findings indicate community-based CVD prevention initiatives can be successful in engaging a high proportion of adult community members. Partnering with local health care systems can allow for use of EHR data to identify eligible participants and evaluate reach and engagement of the priority population.
Keywords: cardiovascular disease; community engagement; community-based; population; prevention; program participation.