Farquhar et al (1977)

Aims

To get communities to change their health-related behaviour in an attempt to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, lowering mortality and morbity.

Procedures

Three communities in Northern California – 13000 to 15000 people

Field experiment –

• Community 1 and 2 – shared the same television and radio stations. Subjected to a two-year campaign about cardiovascular diseases – warning signs, changing diet, increasing exercise and disadvantages of smoking.
• Community 3 – acted as control.

Random selection of women/males chosen to be followed – interviewed annually, took weight, cholesterol level and blood pressure.

Findings

Short-term:

• Knowledge of CVD risk factors increased in two communities
• Sign of decrease in cholesterol, blood pressure, resting heart rate.
• Control group saw risks increase.

Long-term:

• Largest success came from those who were older.
• CHD, mortality risk scored were maintained or continued to improve in intervention cities, while increasing or leveling out in control city.

Conclusions

Future efforts should combine general mass media education with programme development and environmental changes that focus on increasing the availability of lower fat foods.

Strengths:

• Longitudinal Study – it looked at in-depth data and long-term effects, therefore it has high validity and reliability.
• High generalisability – there were high numbers of participants, which makes the research more applicable to the wider population.
• Qualitative data – interviews were made, collecting qualitative data, which means that researchers were able to get high amounts of data and the participant’s opinions on their progress.

Weaknesses:

• Cultural Bias – the study conducted in the USA, which could mean that the results may be hard to generalize to other cultures.
• Reductionist – the study reduced the reason of cardiovascular disease to diet, exercising, when it could be because of genetics.
• Qualitative data – it may be affected by subjectivity since the answers had to be interpreted by the researchers.