Community-based preventive medical department for individual risk factor assessment and intervention in an urban population.

In Malmö, a southern Swedish city of about 230,000 inhabitants, an institute of preventive medicine within the medical department of Malmö General Hospital has been in operation since 1975. It is directed against the major middle-aged internal medical health risks and complications such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and alcohol complications, and contains both screening and intervention resources, mediated predominantly by an individually orientated approach both in the function of the department and in the preventive medical actions. The design, feasibility, and some of the quantitative results of the program are described.