Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

High blood pressure and alcohol use are both major risk factors for non-communicable diseases, placing a significant burden on patients, health care systems and society as a whole. Particularly in low- and middle-income countries such as Thailand, high blood pressure is becoming more and more common. Alcohol use is an established risk factor for high blood pressure, and in Thailand, in 2017 the amount of alcohol consumed per person was nearly twice as high as the average in the region. Given that heavy alcohol use is one of the most common causes of reversible high blood pressure, lifestyle interventions to reduce alcohol consumption and subsequently blood pressure could be a feasible and effective approach for reducing the prevalence of high blood pressure. This Planning and Dissemination Grant will bring together researchers, content experts and stakeholders to lay the groundwork necessary to initiate the first study to implement screening and intervention for alcohol use as a measure to reduce high blood pressure in the primary health care setting in Thailand. An external stakeholder advisory group will be assembled, including policy and decision-makers, advocacy groups, health care providers, and patients. A four-day meeting will be held in Bangkok including a stakeholder workshop to elicit information on research priorities and potential practical, economic, and cultural barriers for the intervention study to be developed. Additionally, a meeting with Knowledge Users and planning sessions with the research team will be held. The outcome of the project will be a synthesis report for dissemination among stakeholders and other researchers and a full-scale grant application for the intervention study.