IMPACT Webinar Series: Part 1
Eliminating RHD in our Lifetime: The Crucial Role of Implementation Science
Dr. George Mensah, NIH, NHLBI
Webinars Archive - Heart University [heartuniversity.org]
Over 90 attendees from 22 countries joined for Dr. Mensah’s lecture.
The IMPACT webinar series kicked off on March 21st, 2023, with guest speaker Dr. George Mensah, NIH, NHLBI.
Dr. Mensah’s presentation is broken down into four parts.
‘Global Burden of RHD’
First, Dr. Mensah presents an overview of RHD and its impact. The global prevalence of RHD has been rising steadily since 1990 with the highest burden being among the most disadvantaged populations and low-resource settings in the world. As of 2019, 40.5 million people worldwide are living with RHD. Dr. Mensah highlights the death rate related to RHD decreased until 2012, but 2017 it began to rise again. RHD can cause serious symptoms like heart failure, fever, chest pain, difficulty breathing and other complications. Dr. Mensah notes that the death rate is not the only concerns that RHD presents. Between 10-12 million DALYs are lost due to RHD. DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years) is a measure combining years lost due to premature death and years not fully lived due to disability or less than full health. To already under-resourced populations, the addition of severe health conditions presents an often-insurmountable burden to families and strains fragile public health systems.
‘Gaps in Prevention & Control’
Until recently, the gap in evidence-based intervention knowledge relating to RHD was high. A 2015 study revealed participants’ characteristics to be young (median age 28), predominantly female, and with high rates of major cardiovascular complications mostly related to the left ventricle of the heart.
Dr. Mensah highlights the study’s conclusion, which revealed gaps in intervention, specifically the underutilization of proven-effective interventions like secondary antibiotic prophylaxis, oral anticoagulants, and contraception.
‘The Role of Dissemination and Implementation Research’
Dr. Mensah points to several key components within Implementation Science, which is a field of research that studies the process and methods of applying evidence-based research and practices into real-life systems. Ensuring that programs and research are fluid and flexible enough to be adapted to and adopted by the community where they are implemented is key to successful outcomes. Following Implementation Science methodology, models and frameworks are helpful tools when planning studies --especially when choosing target audiences, goal and objective outlining, and budgeting.
‘Eliminating RHD in Our Lifetime: What Will it Take?’
According to Dr. Mensah, collaboration is the only way that RHD will be eliminated. Policy making, advocacy and global awareness, continued education and clinical research, and improving infrastructure to the endemic low-resource countries are all necessary to build the capacity for future RHD control.
*The IMPACT training program is designed to build capacity for the next generation of RHD researchers to meet this goal. This Ask the Expert Series webinar, will showcase 4 global RHD experts as they tell us why they work in this field, how they built their careers, and what they see as the next critical research priorities to achieve global RHD control.