The Rural Outreach through cOmmunity health worker-led family oriented and digital health Technology interventionS for cardiovascular disease prevention and management (ROOTS-CVD) initiative is a digitally enabled, family-centred programme to prevent and manage cardiovascular risk in rural households delivered by frontline workers. 

India is experiencing a rapid rise in cardiovascular diseases. Despite strong evidence that many cardiovascular risk factors are preventable, effective prevention and early management remain limited, particularly at the household and community levels in rural areas. Traditional facility-based approaches often fail to provide sustained support for lifestyle modification, risk screening, and long-term follow-up, especially in resource-constrained settings. Evidence from the PROLIFIC Study has demonstrated that family-centered interventions delivered by trained non-physician health workers can significantly improve cardiovascular risk outcomes. Building on this evidence, the ROOTS-CVD initiative was proposed to address the need for family-based and digitally enabled strategies that strengthen early detection, promote healthy behaviours, improve linkage to care, and support the long-term cardiovascular disease prevention and control at the community level.

The ROOTS-CVD initiative is being implemented across six rural areas in five states of India: Agartala (Tripura), Ratnagiri (Maharashtra), Ludhiana (Punjab), Chennai and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), and Mangalore (Karnataka).