Skip to main content

PCPs Provide Most of the Care Related to Life's Essential 8

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on April 18, 2024.

By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, April 18, 2024 -- Primary care is the dominant source of care for Life's Essential 8 (LE8), according to a research letter published online March 25 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Michael E. Johansen, M.D., from OhioHealth in Columbus, and colleagues sought to determine the amount of care for LE8 that is performed by primary care, given its role in access, screening, and prevention. The analysis included data from 68,062 participants (older than 17 years) in the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (2017 to 2019).

The researchers found that rates of meeting the LE8 measures varied from 3.8 percent for tobacco treatment to 52.9 percent for those who received a medical checkup. Across all LE8 measures, primary care alone was the most involved in LE8-related care, ranging from 43.1 percent of people with tobacco use to 69.2 percent of people who received tobacco treatment. The combination of cardiology and primary care together cared for 4.5 percent with tobacco use (the lowest measure) to up to 19.2 percent of statin users. Cardiology alone was associated with care of 1.3 percent of tobacco users to 3.9 percent of statin users. Many people saw neither primary care nor cardiology (51.1 percent of tobacco users).

"Supporting primary care in their core functions of preventive care and chronic management will be key to achieving cardiovascular health," the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted April 2024

Read this next

GPT IDs Errors in Reports With Same Accuracy as Radiologists

TUESDAY, April 30, 2024 -- GPT-4 detects errors in radiology reports with the same accuracy as that of radiologists, according to a study published online April 16 in...

American College of Physicians, April 18-20

The annual meeting of the American College of Physicians (Internal Medicine Meeting) was held from April 18 to 20 in Boston and was attended by internists, adult medicine...

Home Vision Tests Offer Limited Diagnostic Accuracy for Neovascular AMD

MONDAY, April 29, 2024 -- No home-monitoring vision test has the diagnostic accuracy of hospital eye service follow-up clinics to identify active neovascular age-related macular...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.