The SHARP Bus: Scotland's First Mobile Screening Unit
1 December 1991
From the archives:
A bright red double-decker bus toured Scotland between 1991 and 1996, offering risk factor screening and counselling mainly at peoples' places of work—this was the SHARP Bus, launched by the then Scottish Health Minister Michael Forsyth in the December of 1991. It visited 780 screening sites and screened a total of 19,400 individuals aged 18-70. There were two repeat site visits with 1,790 screened for a second time.
The Health Minister indicated that premature deaths from coronary heart disease in Scotland were too high, and the government aimed to reduce it by one quarter by the year 2000; this, he stated, equated to the prevention of 10,000 deaths. To achieve this, the SHARP Bus sought to reach an increased awareness of coronary risk factors in the working population of Scotland and utilise the screening and follow-up data to conduct research.
SHARP Bus Publications:
McEwan SR, Dewhurst NG, Daly F, Forbes CD, Belch JJF. Results of a survey of cardiovascular risk factor prevalence amongst health care workers. The Executive Committee of SHARP: Scottish Medical Journal 2000; 45 (3): 84-85.
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McEwan SR, Daly F, Forbes CD, Hawthorne VM, Belch JJF. Vascular risk factor profiles in the first phase of the Scottish Heart and Arterial Risk Prevention (SHARP) International Angiology 2000; 19 (3): 197-205.
McEwan SR, Daly F, Forbes CD, Belch JJF. The Scottish Heart & Arterial Risk Prevention (SHARP) survey of cardiovascular risk: regional differences. Scottish Medical Journal 2001; 46: 108-110.
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Libby G, McEwan SR (MBE), Morris AD, Belch JJF, SHARP Cohort. No difference in the association between birth weight and total cholesterol for males and females. A Scottish Heart and Arterial Disease Risk Prevention (SHARP) Vascular Medicine 2008; 13 (4): 271-274.
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Libby G, McEwan SR (MBE), Belch JJF, Morris AD. Birth weight does not predict blood pressure in a young working population. A Scottish Heart and Arterial Disease Risk Prevention (SHARP) Annals of Epidemiology 2008; 18 (4): 298-301. View Publication