About us

The Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance (ACDPA) now incorporates the work of the National Vascular Disease Prevention Alliance (NVDPA) - an alliance of four leading and well-known Australian charities: Diabetes Australia, the National Heart Foundation of Australia, Kidney Health Australia and the Stroke Foundation.

In 2000, these four charities began to work together to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Australia. Much of the work of the NVDPA to date has been to promote the use of an 'absolute risk' approach to predicting risk of CVD.

The NVDPA's Guidelines for the assessment of absolute cardiovascular disease risk were released in March 2009.

Building on this work, the NVDPA released the Guidelines for the assessment of absolute cardiovascular disease risk in May 2012. The guidelines were approved by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and provide recommendations for the management of CVD risk in the primary prevention setting. The guidelines incorporate guidance on assessing CVD risk in all adults over 45 years of age (35 years for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples) but unlike the 2009 version, the 2012 guidelines extend the age range to include those over 74 years.

A 2020 consensus statement on risk assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples recommends absolute risk assessment from 30 years and combined early screening for diabetes, chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular risk factors from 18 years. See the FAQs for more information on risk assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Use the following links to view: Guidelines for the management of absolute CVD risk and Quick reference guide for health professionals.

The absolute risk calculator available on this website is a supporting tool to the NVDPA guidelines.

For further information related to the calculator, please contact us.

What's next ?

The ACDPA (incorporating NVDPA) actively advocates for a health system that supports an absolute risk approach. The ACDPA also aims to raise awareness among health professionals to use absolute risk assessment and management in their everyday practice. See some of our advocacy work.