Date: April ,

To:

From:

Subject: Funding for the Early Cardiovascular Health Outreach SMS (ECHOS) Program

I write in relation to your proposal to fund the ECHOS program implemented by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The ECHOS program seeks to promote health awareness and encourage healthy lifestyles among college students by using text messaging to increase preventive knowledge on cardiovascular health. Past studies have shown that text messaging programs provide an effective and convenient platform to communicate with large audiences and improve health awareness among target populations (Glowacki et al., 2018). However, as Glowacki et al. (2018) point out, their use in college populations is limited and hence, it may be important to assess the feasibility of the ECHOS program among the target group as the organization considers the funding possibilities.

The Health Problem

The CDC identifies cardiovascular disease (CVD) as a leading cause of death among adults in the US (Tran et al., 2022). It is estimated that one in every four deaths occurring in the US is attributable to CVD, and that every year, 610,000 adults in America die of CVD (Tran et al., 2022). Multiple interventions have been implemented at the community, state, and federal levels to reduce the incidence of CVD among American adults in general (Tran et al., 2022). However, college students have been conspicuously underestimated in most of these programs despite presenting a significantly high prevalence of CVD risk factors.

As they establish their adult identities and gain independence, college students often engage in unhealthy behaviours such as poor sleeping habits, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, unhealthy diets, and physical inactivity - all of which increase the risk of CVD (Tran et al., 2022). A study by Nair et al. (as cited in Tran et al., 2022) involving 970 college students found that 45 percent of college students did not engage in any form of physical activity, 71 percent had fried foods in their diets (daily), 38 percent were binge drinkers, and 40 percent were regular tobacco smokers. Unfortunately, 50 percent of college students are unaware that such lifestyle behaviours place them at risk of developing CVD in the future. Common risk factors for CVD include diabetes, hyperlipidemia, physical inactivity, obesity, and smoking (Tran et al., 2022). It would be prudent to note that studies have found that 73 percent of college students have lipoprotein cholesterol, 47 percent have hypertension, 20 percent have high blood glucose, and 33 percent are either obese or overweight (Tran et al., 2022). Generally, however, 75 percent of these students are unaware that they have these risk factors (Makaroff et al., 2021).

Programs that help college students gain knowledge about CVD risk factors and general heart health would go a long way towards shaping their future health outcomes and enhancing their self-efficacy around healthy lifestyle choices. Ultimately, this would make them less likely to engage in behaviours that increase the risk of developing CVD later on in life.

The ECHOS Program Offers a Valuable Opportunity

The UCLAs Department of Medicine has implemented the ECHOS Program, which seeks to increase students...…to address the current lack of awareness and knowledge among college students places our community at risk of reporting even higher incidences of CVD among younger cohorts of the population in the future. This will ultimately increase the economic burden of CVD, i.e. as a consequence of increased healthcare costs, thereby robbing the country of crucial human resources.

A short-term impact of the ECHOS program would be increased knowledge and awareness of CVD among young people, leading to positive lifestyle choices. An intermediate impact would be an increase in the number of young people volunteering to pass the knowledge they have gained from the program to their peers to help them improve their lifestyle choices as well. The long-term impact would be a decrease in the overall incidence of CVD in the community and the US population in general.

Funding the ECHOS program at UCLA and equivalent programs in other colleges would benefit multiple groups of people. To begin with, college students in the participating colleges would gain knowledge on CVD, which would allow them to make more informed lifestyle choices. Students from other colleges would also benefit when program participants begin to share the knowledge they have acquired with their peers. Families and communities would benefit from reduced cases and burdens of treating CVD. Ultimately, Americans would benefit as healthcare resources that would otherwise be spent on treating CVD will be channelled to other worthy initiatives. The nation would benefit from an improvement in overall quality of life. For these reasons, I recommend that the organization considers…