The North Carolina Six-County Cardiovascular Health Survey

What is the NC Six-County CVH Survey?

In 1998, North Carolina was one of two states in the country to be awarded funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop a Comprehensive Cardiovascular Health (CVH) Program.  One of the main priorities of NC's CVH Program is to promote physical activity and healthy nutrition through environmental and policy changes.  NC's CVH Program has selected and now funds six Lead CVH Counties (Henderson, Surry, Cabarrus, Wake, Robeson, and Pitt) to implement the CVH Program in their counties and to facilitate similar programs within their regions.  To learn more about NC's CVH Counties, see page 2 of our Winter 2000/2001 Start with Your Heart Newsletter.
The Six-County CVH Survey was designed to provide county-level data for the Lead CVH Counties on physical activity, nutrition, and other cardiovascular disease risk factors to use in planning and implementing their cardiovascular health programs.  NC county-level data on physical activity, nutrition, or other cardiovascular disease risk factors were previously unavailable.  The survey was a random-digit-dialed telephone survey of adults (at least 18 years of age) residing in each of the six counties, and covered the following topics:  physical activity, nutrition, tobacco use, worksite environment (related to physical activity, nutrition, and tobacco use), demographics, hypertension awareness, stroke awareness, and disability.  The survey focused on individual behavior and knowledge as well as environments and policies supportive of healthy behaviors.  Interviews were conducted by the Telephone Interviewing Laboratory at the NC Center for Health Statistics (which also conducts the NC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System) between June and November 2000.  1879 interviews, at least 300 in each county, were completed.

The NC Six-County CVH Survey was funded in part by North Carolina state appropriations for the NC CVH Data Unit and CDC cooperative agreement #98084.

Survey Instrument
NC Six-County CVH Survey Questionnaire (view or download an Adobe Acrobat version of the questionnaire)
Show Me the Data!
Data by County (data for each of the six counties in the same table)
Slide Shows
Powerpoint slide shows with talking points that you can download and use.
Technical Notes
The data presented in these tables were weighted to adjust for the probability of participant selection and to reflect the demographic makeup of the six counties; this weighting procedure makes the data more representative of the population of the six counties.  Respondents who refused to answer a question or replied "don't know" or "not sure" were excluded from any calculations in these tables, unless otherwise noted.
Because this survey has a complex sampling design, the statistical program SUDAAN was used to calculate the standard errors and confidence intervals.  95% confidence intervals (95% C.I) are reported for all prevalence estimates.  The 95% C.I. is an indicator of the precision of the estimate.  The survey provides an estimate of the true prevalence in the population (which is unknown) but we can say that the data from the sample are consistent with the true prevalence being within the confidence interval.  The narrower the confidence interval, the more precise the estimate, and the more confidence we can have in the estimate being close to the true population value.  A wide confidence interval indicates that the estimate is not very precise.  Percentages based on small sample sizes will likely have larger confidence intervals and should be interpreted with caution.
These data have several limitations.  The survey is based on participant’s self-report and it is possible that some behaviors and health outcomes will be underreported by individuals (often those that are socially unacceptable) while others may be over-reported.  Only individuals living in households were surveyed; institutionalized individuals, such as those in hospitals or nursing homes, were not surveyed.  Also, since these surveys were conducted by telephone, only individuals living in households with a telephone were surveyed; about 95% of North Carolina households have at least one telephone, however, so any effect is probably not sizeable.
If you have any other questions about the survey, please contact us.