Policy makers' perceptions of the high burden of heart disease in rural Australia: Implications for the implementation of evidence-based rural health policy.

The rural context constrains the use of scientific evidence in policy making for the prevention of heart disease in rural areas in Australia with multiple factors influencing the capacity for evidenced based health policy. This is similar to findings at the international scale and is for consideration across other developed countries that experience inequalities in IHD disease burden between rural and urban populations.