S ince its founding in 1998, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP) has developed a strong foundation of epidemiology, surveillance, applied research, and evaluation evidence. This foundation has supported the creation of relevant programs administered by DHDSP and implemented by state, local, territorial health departments and their partners, tribal organizations, academia, and other public health, healthcare, and community-based organizations.In 2013, DHDSP funded recipients to address strategies primarily in the healthcare setting. Over the next few years, DHDSP encouraged health departments to think more about the critical role communities and community-based organizations have in managing heart disease and stroke. Described in more detail by Minaya-Junca et al., 1 DHDSP funded state and local health departments and tribal organizations through three large public health programs from 2018-2023 to implement programmatic strategies to improve hypertension control and cholesterol management. The three cooperative agreements include DP18-1815 (Improving the Health of Americans through Prevention and Management of Diabetes and Heart Disease and Stroke), DP18-1816 (Well-Integrated Screening and Evaluation for Women Across the Nation; WISEWOMAN), and DP18-1817 (Innovative State and Local Public Health Strategies to Prevent and Manage Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Stroke).The funding during that time offered a more intentional focus on populations with a higher burden of cardiovascular risk and disease, largely related to underlying social determinants of health (SDOH) and pervasive systemic racism.Articles in the two volumes of this supplement, "Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Efforts through State and Local Health Departments Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Evaluation Findings and Implications for the Field," reflect work carried out with funding from these three programs. Nearly all the articles speak directly to the larger sociocultural issues that have allowed some populations to bear the larger burden of disease. Since DHDSP funded three major programs beginning in 2018, there has been a much sharper focus on the role that SDOH play in the major disparities we see in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for hypertension, high cholesterol, and for cardiovascular disease more broadly, particularly in populations of color, but also in other populations of focus. DHDSPfunded recipients are now focusing on implementing strategies within their populations of focus. This includes tribal organizations, although none of the articles in this supplement represent the work within this population. Supplements like this one encourage recipients to write up the findings from their efforts to build the practice-based evidence needed to inform future work.
