Bringing Cardiovascular Prevention into the Community: Protocol for an Observational Study of a Mosque-Based Health Initiative Combining Education and Cardiovascular Screening

Background: Populations with the highest cardiovascular risk are often the least likely to take part in preventive care, a pattern described by the inverse care law. Delivering prevention in trusted community settings may improve reach. Methods: This protocol describes an observational, cross-sectional study embedded in recurring health days at a large mosque in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Each health day combines a collective educational session, dialogue with healthcare professionals and a low-barrier health check by Hartcheckpunten of the Dutch Heart Foundation (blood pressure, heart rate, capillary cholesterol and glucose, as well as waist circumference), followed by lifestyle advice on elevated risk factors. Adult visitors are invited to complete a short questionnaire and, with separate consent, to allow the use of their health check results. The primary outcomes are health perception, access to healthcare, trust in healthcare and health literacy. Secondary outcomes are screen-positive cardiovascular risk factors, defined with prespecified cut-off values and distinguished from a clinical diagnosis; their relation to the primary outcomes; and feasibility, assessed with RE-AIM indicators. Analyses are descriptive, with 95% confidence intervals. Discussion: This study will show whom mosque-based health days reach, what they detect and whether they can be delivered and evaluated in this setting. It is not designed to assess effectiveness. The findings will inform the design of future community-based prevention studies.