We observed a gap between patients receiving and absorbing or retaining information on self-care for congestive heart failure supplied by health care providers. Self-care education needs to be directed to outpatients in addition to inpatients.

Estimates of CAM use in this nationally representative sample were considerably lower than have been reported in previous surveys. Most CAM therapies are used by US adults in conjunction with conventional medical services.

: Neighborhood walkability, food availability, safety, and social cohesion may be mechanisms that link neighborhoods to hypertension.

Background Knowledge of trends in the incidence of and survival after myocardial infarction (MI) in a community setting is important to understanding trends in coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality rates. Methods and Results We estimated race and gender specific trends in the incidence of hospitalized MI, case-fatality and CHD mortality from community-wide surveillance and validation of hospital discharges and of in- and out-of-hospital deaths among 35 to 74 year old residents of four communities in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. Biomarker adjustment accounted for change from reliance on cardiac enzymes to widespread use of troponin measurements overtime. Between 1987 and 2008, a total of 30,985 fatal or non-fatal hospitalized acute MI events occurred. Rates of CHD death among persons without a history of MI fell an average 4.7 percent per year among men and 4.3 percent per year among women. Rates of both in- and out-of-hospital CHD death declined significantly throughout the period. Age- and biomarker adjusted average annual rate of incident MI decreased 4.3 percent among white men, 3.8 percent among white women, 2.9 percent among black women, and 1.5 percent among black men. Declines in CHD mortality and MI incidence were greater in the second decade (1997–2008). Failure to account for biomarker shift would have masked declines in incidence, particularly among blacks. Age-adjusted 28-day case-fatality after hospitalized MI declined 4.2 percent per year among white men and 3.6 percent per year among black men, 2.6 percent per year among white women, and 2.4 percent per year among black women. Conclusions Although these findings from 4 communities may not directly generalize to blacks and whites in the entire US, we observed significant declines in MI incidence, primarily due to downward trends in rates between 1997 and 2008.