CPR training for people in public housing can help improve cardiac arrest survival rates

CPR training for people in public housing can help improve cardiac arrest survival rates

Of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in residential areas of Vienna and Copenhagen between 2016 and 2021, a third of these cardiac arrests occurred in public housing communities. This incidence increased to over 60% when areas surrounding public housing communications were included, suggesting that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training programs tailored to these communities could be an efficient strategy to train more people to save lives, according to preliminary research presented at the American's 2022 Resuscitation Science Symposium Heart Association. The 2022 meeting will be held in person in Chicago on November 5-6, 2022 and will present the latest advances in the treatment of cardiopulmonary arrest and life-threatening traumatic injuries.

Our results offer great potential to improve CPR and bystander survival on a large scale. Public housing is a geographically well-defined area with an organizational unit that allows viable access for targeted population training initiatives and the use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs). By focusing on initiatives for people living in public housing, half of all cardiac arrests can be addressed through improved AED use and resident CPR training.”

Anne Juul Grabmayr, MD, lead author of the study, Ph.D. Student and clinical research assistant in the Copenhagen Ambulance Service, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

An AED is a lightweight, portable device that can detect an abnormal heart rhythm that requires shock treatment and deliver a shock to return the heart rhythm to normal.

The study compared out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in public housing communities in Vienna, Austria, from 2017 to 2021 and Copenhagen, Denmark, from 2016 to 2020 with other residential areas in each city. Researchers reviewed information from city cardiac arrest registries, public housing data and an atlas for population density and housing details. which aligns with the American Heart Association's support to improve the health of people living in public housing,

Of more than 4,300 inpatient out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Vienna, 32% occurred in residents of a public shared apartment. Of more than 2,300 out-of-hospital inpatient cardiac arrests in Copenhagen, 35% occurred in people living in public housing. These results represent a threefold increase per square kilometer and a one and a half times increase per 100,000 inhabitants compared to the other residential areas. Taking into account the immediate surroundings of all residential areas, approximately 65% ​​of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Vienna occurred in social housing or within 104 meters of social housing and more than 56% in Copenhagen in the same radius.

“The unique thing about this study is that it answers how to find high-risk residential areas and, most importantly, offers a point of intervention,” said Grabmayr. “Public housing communities have staff, organizations, dedicated budgets and communication channels that may be able to assist in disseminating CPR information, recruiting people for CPR training, and providing and maintaining AEDs.”

Public housing policies could also help address social inequality, as people living in public housing may have high rates of other diseases. Communities can potentially serve as a base for health programs to reach vulnerable populations and improve access to health services. For example, public housing and other types of low-income housing may be potential targets for interventions to improve hypertension or type 2 diabetes management. These types of strategies align with the American Heart Association's support for improving the health of people living in public housing communities.

Previous research has found that those who suffered a cardiac arrest in a public housing neighborhood were younger and had a lower likelihood of survival compared to people who suffered a cardiac arrest in the remaining neighborhoods. The researchers said this difference in age and survival was surprising, as was the large proportion of cardiac arrests that occurred in public housing.

The results of the study can be applied to public housing communities in other countries, including the United States.

“We believe that a significant proportion of cardiac arrests worldwide occur in social residential areas, although the proportion may not be exactly the same,” Grabmayr said. "We believe that a larger proportion of residents in public housing live in communities with lower socioeconomic status. Since we suspect that these results are a sign of low socioeconomic status among residents, our study results may be very transferrable to the U.S. Denmark and Austria are known to have fairly low levels of health inequality, which gives us reason to believe that the incidence of cardiac arrest may be even greater in public housing and other forms of low-income housing in other countries, such as the United States, where health care is not free or available to all.”

Differences in how public housing is defined across countries and shares of total housing construction may also limit the applicability of the study's findings to other communities, she said.

Source:

American Heart Association

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