Highlights:
- The American Heart Association has historically declared social drivers - the conditions in which people are born and live – as a cause of poor health and premature death from heart disease and stroke, which are the leading causes of death worldwide.
- The Association committed in 2020 to raise and invest more than $230 million to specifically address the barriers to achieving equitable health for everyone everywhere.
- By 2024, the Association successfully invested more than $210 million specifically in scientific research awards and grants related to health disparities, more than doubling its goal for research funding.
- By 2024, the Association raised and invested more than $300 million in community-led solutions to address health inequities locally, including $59 million specifically through its American Heart Association Social Impact Fund and the Bernard J. Tyson Impact fund.
DALLAS, December 20, 2024 — The American Heart Association has successfully concluded an unprecedented series of strategic commitments to address social drivers of health, including the conditions in which people are born and live that are barriers to achieving equitable health for all people. Meeting these historical commitments, originally established in 2020, includes financial investments exceeding $500 million to support targeted, evidence-based initiatives, research and programs and to drive systemic public health changes to ensure every person everywhere has the same opportunity for a full, healthy life. The Association, celebrating 100 years of lifesaving service in 2024, is the leading global voluntary health organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke.
"These commitments represented our boldest and most significant effort yet in our first hundred-year history to ensure the opportunity for health and hope for everyone everywhere," said American Heart Association Chief Executive Officer Nancy Brown. "Since 2020, we successfully leveraged the full strength of the American Heart Association – our donors, our volunteers and our professional staff – to accelerate progress against the economic, social and health inequities that prevent all people from enjoying their longest, healthiest life."
Specifically, during the past four years in advance of its centennial, the American Heart Association has comprehensively fulfilled each of ten strategic commitments:
- SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH - The Association invested more than $210 million in accelerating new scientific research programs and grants focused on evidence-based solutions to health inequities. The Association also expanded opportunities for underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in science and medicine through grant funding, STEM programs and its established historical black colleges and universities (HBCU), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) and EmPOWERED to Serve Scholars programs.
- COMMUNITY INVESTMENT - The Association invested more than $300 million more in local, community-led entrepreneurial solutions to address health inequities at the zip code level. Specifically, the organization invested $59 million through its Social Impact Fund and the Bernard J. Tyson Social Impact Fund. Additionally, the Association also helped to activate local change through its community-based issues campaigns, including those of its Voices for Healthy Kids initiative.
- ACCESS TO CARE - As part of its historic commitment to advocacy and public policy change, the Association actively worked to support efforts to expand Medicaid benefits to 40 states. Expansion to all 50 states remains an American Heart Association policy priority.
- TOBACCO CONTROL – The Association played a critical advisory role in the development of final U. S. Food and Drug Administration rules that would prohibit the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, while successfully working to pass 178 tobacco-related policies in states and local communities nationwide.
- HYPERTENSION CONTROL - The Association led the establishment of the National Hypertension Control Initiative, through collaboration with the U.S. Office of Minority Health, which recruited and onboarded 100% of its target 350 Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) community health centers, realizing a nearly 10% increase in the blood pressure control risk of high-risk individuals living in vulnerable communities.
- HEALTH SYSTEM QUALITY INITIATIVES - The Association successfully extended the reach of its Get With The Guidelines® hospital certification initiative, expanding available health outcomes data to the nearly 3,000 U.S. hospitals currently engaged. With a focused emphasis on vulnerable rural populations through its Rural Health Outcomes Accelerator, the American Heart Association now ensures that 80% of the United States population have access to a Get With the Guidelines certified hospital.
- WORKFORCE LITERACY – The Association reached more than 3,500 corporate executives with workplace equitable health resources, hosted nearly 200 more in related dialogue sessions and secured 555 companies to complete its Well Being Works Better™ workplace scorecard.
- HEALTH PROFESSONAL EDUCATION – The Association enhanced the equitable health professional development offerings available in its online education hub portfolio, serving nearly 90,000 users. At the same time, the Association increased the percentage of women in speaker/moderator roles at its scientific meetings to 50%, while 17% of those in speaker/moderator roles were from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.
- SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS - With a more focused and inclusive editorial review process, editors of the American Heart Association's 14 peer-reviewed scientific journals reviewed nearly 400 scientific article submissions relevant to equitable health and increased publications in its health equity collection by nearly 9%.
- AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION WORKFORCE – Today, the Association boasts a workforce in which more than 46% of its new staff employees identify as reflective of diverse backgrounds. The Association received top honors from Fair360 for the diversity of its board of directors and has seen material increases in its supplier diversity nationwide.
"These substantial commitments represented a bold response to holistically confront factors that impede equitable health. Barriers to equity in housing, education, healthcare and elsewhere are not only wrong – these hinder the American Heart Association from achieving its goal of equitable health for all people," said Marsha Jones, American Heart Association volunteer board chair and former executive vice president and chief diversity officer for The PNC Financial Services Group. "As we look to the future, it is even more imperative that we continue our work to accelerate social equity and break down these barriers."
In advisories published earlier this year in its flagship peer-reviewed scientific journal Circulation, the American Heart Association now projects that at least 6 in 10 U.S. adults (61%), more than 184 million people, are expected to face some type of cardiovascular disease (CVD) within the next 30 years, reflecting a disease prevalence that will have a $1.8 trillion price tag in direct and indirect costs. The analyses also found anticipated larger increases in the prevalence of CVD and risk factors, and in the number of people with these conditions, among people from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds.
"Some of these increases reflect demographic shifts in the U.S., with projections suggesting that Asian and Hispanic populations will nearly double by 2060," said Keith Churchwell, M.D., FAHA, American Heart Association volunteer president and an associate clinical Professor of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut and adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee. "However, much of the inequity we continue to see in cardiovascular disease and risk factors remains attributed to systemic issues affecting socioeconomic factors and access to care."
"As the American Heart Association enters its second century, we recognize that the landscape of cardiovascular health will change over the next three decades because of the coming tsunami of rising healthcare costs, an older population living longer and increasing numbers of people from under-resourced populations," Brown said. "Yet, despite the dire outlook, we can change this course. These commitments were only a start. They laid the groundwork for our future focus, a future in which every one of us can lead a life of health and well-being for everyone everywhere."
