More than one in four Danes die of a cardiovascular disease. And despite a 45 percent decline in the number of deaths due to cardiovascular disease between 1995 and 2011, cardiovascular disease remains the second most frequent cause of death in Denmark.

Bo Christensen will help to change this. He has just been appointed professor at Aarhus University, where his focus is on the opportunities that general practitioners have to help prevent cardiovascular diseases and to take care of patients who have a cardiovascular disease.

The new professor has had a professorship with special responsibilities and in several of his research projects he has shown that health examinations by general practitioners lowered the patients' risk of experiencing a heart attack - without the patients being made to feel that they were ill.

”The Danish health service provides the general practitioners with very good opportunities to help prevent cardiovascular diseases through their initiatives for the patient. We know our patients very well and meet them in many contexts, which means that we can work together to help reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease,” says Bo Christensen, who is responsible for the Danish College of General Practitioner’s clinical guidelines for how general practitioners can prevent cardiovascular diseases.

A healthy life after a blood clot

The acute treatment of patients who have suffered cardiovascular diseases has been improved. The challenge is how to ensure that patients live a healthy life after the blood clot.

”We must support the patient’s healthy lifestyle and optimise the medical aftercare,” says Bo Christensen.

Studies show that general practice is doing a very good job. However, an overlooked problem throughout the entire healthcare system is that around one third of all patients develop anxiety and depression after a heart attack.

”The challenge is therefore to uncover the psychological reactions and help patients to return to their life after a heart attack. It is here that general practice can take on a crucial role through the personal and long-term knowledge of our patients,” says Bo Christensen, whose current research focuses on this area.

Bo Christensen took his medical degree at Aarhus University in 1983. In 1985 he was awarded the university's gold medal for a project that examined general practitioner’s referral of patients to examination and treatment by medical specialists and outpatient departments. In 1995 he defended his PhD dissertation at the university.

Since 1992 Bo Christensen has been a general practitioner in Laasby near Aarhus. Since 1993 he has also been associate professor at Aarhus University. And for several periods he has also been head of the former Department of General Practice, which is now is the Section for General Practice under the Department of Public Health.

Further information

Professor Bo Christensen
Aarhus University, Department of Public Health
Direct tel: +45 8716 7935
bc@alm.au.dk