PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Mayowa Owolabi
AU  - Jaime J Miranda
AU  - Joseph Yaria
AU  - Bruce Ovbiagele
TI  - Controlling cardiovascular diseases in low and middle income countries by placing proof in pragmatism
AID  - 10.1136/bmjgh-2016-000105
DP  - 2016 Oct 01
TA  - BMJ Global Health
PG  - e000105
VI  - 1
IP  - 3
4099  - http://gh.bmj.com/content/1/3/e000105.short
4100  - http://gh.bmj.com/content/1/3/e000105.full
AB  - Low and middle income countries (LMICs) bear a huge, disproportionate and growing burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) which constitutes a threat to development. Efforts to tackle the global burden of CVD must therefore emphasise effective control in LMICs by addressing the challenge of scarce resources and lack of pragmatic guidelines for CVD prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. To address these gaps, in this analysis article, we present an implementation cycle for developing, contextualising, communicating and evaluating CVD recommendations for LMICs. This includes a translatability scale to rank the potential ease of implementing recommendations, prescriptions for engaging stakeholders in implementing the recommendations (stakeholders such as providers and physicians, patients and the populace, policymakers and payers) and strategies for enhancing feedback. This approach can help LMICs combat CVD despite limited resources, and can stimulate new implementation science hypotheses, research, evidence and impact.