Early Detection of and Intervention Towards Chronic Diseases Among Individuals Without Formal Education

The study will be conducted at Vesterbro and Amager in Copenhagen, Denmark, and general practitioners with a medical practice in this area will be invited to enter the study. From the patient lists of the participating general practitioners all persons aged 45-64 years will be identified and baseline questionnaires will be mailed to these persons. The questionnaire information will be entered electronically into the general practitioners electronic chart system using the Danish Quality Unit of General Practice (DAK-E) system. Thus, the questionnaire information will provide the general practitioners with information in the electronic form on health behavior, symptoms and socioeconomic information on all his patients in this age group that would not normally have access to in a systematic way. Persons who answer the baseline questionnaire and who do not have any formal education will randomly be divided into two groups - one intervention group and one control group. All persons allocated to the intervention group will receive a personal invitation to an appointed health check from their general practitioner. The health check at the general practitioner includes measurement of weight, height, hip and waist circumference, blood pressure, lung function, blood sugar, total cholesterol, and thyroidal status. Participants with abnormal screens at the health check will, depending of the severity, either receive the offer of the referral to the municipality health center for a lifestyle change program and/or follow the procedures for diagnostics and treatment. For individuals with abnormal screens or health behavior amenable to intervention at the first health check an additional health check will be scheduled six months after the first health check. Persons allocated to the control group will receive a baseline questionnaire and other than that follow normal procedure in general practice. At 12 month follow-up questionnaires will be send out to all participants at the intervention group as well as the control group.