Abstract DP263: Pressure Points: Tackling Stroke and Heart Attack Risk Through Community Screenings

Introduction: Stroke, a leading form of cardiovascular disease, is up to 80% preventable—primarily through managing hypertension, its most modifiable risk factor. Stroke programs often focus on community outreach through awareness or prevention, with the latter posing greater implementation challenges. Our comprehensive stroke and our comprehensive cardiovascular programs have conducted preventative blood pressure (BP) screenings over several years and analyzed the resulting data to inform a targeted quality improvement initiative. Methods: Quality improvement status was confirmed by our university’s IRB. From September 2024 to August 2025, stroke and cardiovascular program staff conducted blood pressure screenings at employer and community sponsored health fairs, incentivized with produce vouchers or wellness prizes. We collected data included BP readings, age, sex at birth, medication use, primary care status, and county of residence. Using the AHA Community-Based BP Screening algorithm, the team provided follow-up recommendations and offered additional resources to uninsured participants or those without a primary care provider. Results: Data was collected from 729 participants. Please refer to Table 1 (below) for descriptive statistics. American Heart Association guidelines were used to categorize participant BPs as normal, elevated, hypertension stage 1, hypertension stage 2, and hypertensive crisis. [SL1] [MH2] Tables 2 and 3 (below) contain information on BP Class by county of residence and PCP/BP Medication status. Higher frequency of BP in the hypertension stage 2 category was observed in patients who had a primary care provider and were taking medication. We also observed differences in the frequency of BP categories between sex and county of residence. Conclusion: Initial analysis using independent samples t-tests indicates a statistically significant difference in SBP for participants taking medication compared to those who are not (p < 0.001). Data analysis is ongoing, and final conclusions will be presented at the 2026 International Stroke Conference. A p-value of 0.05 will be used to determine statistical significance. IBM SPSS Statistics version 28 will be used for statistical analysis. This data has been used to improve future community BP screenings. We identified referral challenges for individuals without a primary care provider. Future efforts hope to involve community health workers to support and streamline this process.