Preventing Heart Disease and Diabetes Before They Start: Nine National Prevention Programs

The path starts in 1972 in the North Karelia region of Finland, where the project was described as the first public health project in the world aimed at preventing cardiovascular disease mortality. It was sponsored by Finnish national and regional health authorities with World Health Organization involvement, and its methods were later extended across Finland.

In January 2008 the British Prime Minister announced a preventive program for England, and the NHS Health Check now invites adults aged 40 to 74 for a check every five years. The check screens for heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease, so prevention here begins with finding risk early in people who feel well.

Japan introduced its Specific Health Checkups and Specific Health Guidance in fiscal year 2008 and requires every health insurer to provide them to enrollees and dependents aged 40 to 74. It pairs the screening with follow-up guidance focused on metabolic syndrome, which makes the insurers themselves the delivery channel.

Change4Life began in January 2009 as a public health programme in England run by Public Health England. Unlike the screening programs before it, it spoke to families through a national marketing campaign, and it was brought under the Better Health brand in 2021.

Since 2009 the Get Healthy Service in New South Wales, Australia, has offered free health coaching by telephone and online to residents aged 16 and over. Its sources record more than 100,000 people engaged, and delivery is now contracted to Diabetes Australia, which shows coaching as a distance service rather than a clinic visit.

The United States National Diabetes Prevention Program is a partnership of public and private organizations that makes an affordable lifestyle change program easier to join for people with prediabetes or at risk of type 2 diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention source dates its creation to 2010, so the program serves as the example here of structured lifestyle classes delivered through partners.

Million Hearts began in 2012 and is co-led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Its official site sets a goal of averting one million preventable cardiovascular events over five years, which turns prevention into a measurable national target.

On April 2, 2013 the Mexican federal government, through the Secretaria de Salud, set out the steps for a national strategy against overweight, obesity and diabetes. A Secretaria de Salud press release records the launch of 32 state strategies, one for each state, so the national plan was carried out state by state.

Singapore declared its War on Diabetes in 2016 to rally a whole-of-nation effort. The Ministry of Health, working with the Institute of Policy Studies, ran a Citizens Jury to involve residents, and the ministry describes the work as continuing.