Management of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors by Rural and Urban Primary Care Practices
Link
Date
01/2026
Description
Despite the beneficial impact on health of preventive screening for cardiovascular disease (CVD), screening rates remain low. This brief compares management of CVD risk factors between rural and urban primary care practices, using quality measures, in a large national registry.
Key Findings:
- From 2016 to 2020, blood pressure control and intervention for tobacco use improved in primary care practices.
- For both quality measures, rural practices had similar rates of performance and improvement as urban practices.
- Large and small rural primary care practices provide comparable quality of care to urban practices on these key measures of cardiovascular risk.
Center
Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
Authors
Lars Peterson, Zachary Morgan