American Heart Association
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The American Heart Association is the nation’s largest nonprofit organization focused on reducing disability and death from cardiovascular diseases. The American Stroke Association is a division of the American Heart Association that focuses exclusively on stroke.
The American Heart Association was founded in 1924 in New York City as a professional health society to help doctors exchange information about heart diseases. In 1948, it was reorganized into a voluntary health agency to accept lay volunteers and serve the general public. The organization is now based in Dallas, Texas, and has 12 regional affiliates and hundreds of local organizations. Overall, the association has more than 3,000 employees and 22 million volunteers.
The association’s impact goal is to reduce coronary heart disease, stroke and risk by 25 percent by 2010. Coronary heart disease is the nation’s leading cause of death, claiming more than 479,000 lives a year. Stroke is the third-leading cause, claiming more than 157,000 lives a year. Overall, heart disease, stroke and other vascular diseases kill more than 900,000 people in the United States every year.
To reach its impact goal, the American Heart Association invests in scientific research, public and professional education, community services and advocacy using money raised through public contributions and other revenue sources.
Research: In fiscal 2004-05, the association invested more than $140 million to support research projects at more than 200 medical institutions. This investment represents 23.4 percent of overall organizational expenses. In the past decade, the association has funded more than $1.2 billion in research.
Public Education: The association sponsors several national programs and campaigns to raise public awareness of heart disease and stroke. Go Red For Women is a movement focused on educating women about heart disease. The Power To End Stroke campaign speaks to African Americans, who are at a particularly high risk of stroke. In 2005, the association formed a partnership with the William J. Clinton Foundation, known as the “Alliance for a Healthier Generation,” to address the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States. Choose To Move promotes physical activity among women. The Cholesterol Low Down focuses on blood cholesterol reduction.
The American Heart Association educates the public through a variety of printed and online materials. These include patient brochures and fact sheets, tool kits for health professionals, and Internet sites such as “Heart Profilers,” which helps patients and caregivers analyze treatment options for conditions such as atrial fibrillation, coronary artery disease, heart failure, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The Consumer Publications division creates general and specialty cookbooks and magazine cookbooks as well as health-information books, including the highly popular No-Fad Diet book. The Food Certification Program provides consumers an easy, reliable way to select heart-healthy foods in grocery stores. Foods displaying the heart-check mark are certified to be low in saturated fat and cholesterol.
Professional Education: The American Heart Association’s annual Scientific Sessions is the world’s largest conference devoted to heart disease and stroke. More than 26,000 scientists, physicians, healthcare professionals and others attended the 2005 conference in Dallas. The association also sponsors an annual international stroke conference and conferences on topics including arteriosclerosis, hypertension, epidemiology and prevention. The Scientific Publishing department publishes medical scientific statements and guidelines, an annual statistical sourcebook, and five scientific journals: Circulation; Stroke; Hypertension; Circulation Research; and Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.
The association’s Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) unit is an international leader in resuscitation research and training. Each year, ECC trains about 10 million people in basic and advanced cardiovascular life support, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) the use of automated external defibrillators and advanced medical treatments. Training is based on science-based emergency care guidelines developed through ECC and published in the American Heart Association’s journal, Circulation. These guidelines are used by hospitals, EMS systems and other organizations. ECC’s training programs are administered in 37 countries and in 12 languages.
Advocacy: Through the association’s “You’re The Cure” network, volunteer advocates contact lawmakers to ask for their support on public policies that will advance the fight against heart disease and stroke. This includes federal and state legislation on such issues as tobacco control, stroke care, access to automated external defibrillators, school nutrition and physical education, and funding for heart disease and stroke research and prevention.
Fund Raising: American Heart Association fund-raising activities include Heart Walk, which draws more than 1 million walkers at about 600 locations each year, and Jump Rope For Heart and Hoops For Heart events, where elementary and middle schools students jump-rope or play basketball while raising funds for cardiovascular research and education. Go Red for Women luncheons and galas in cities nationwide are other major events held each year. The association also administers planned giving and corporate gift programs, and is listed as a charity of choice with workplace giving programs at companies including Walgreens, Wal-Mart and Merrill Lynch. The American Heart Association was the first nonprofit organization to qualify to use the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance seal.
Volunteers play the most important role of all in the American Heart Association’s overall health impact. The association has 13 volunteer scientific councils with more than 23,000 members. These councils help shape the association’s professional educational initiatives and produce scientific statements, guidelines and advisories. The association’s board of directors, which has final authority on organizational operations, is comprised entirely of elected volunteers.
[edit] See also
- Automated external defibrillator (AED)
- Basic life support, a standard published by the AHA
- Advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), a standard published by the AHA
- AHA-1, an AHA-proposed diet
- Paul R. Ellis Award, and award bestowed by AHA chapters
- Red Friday Promotes awareness of heart disease by wearing red every Friday, although there are two other causes that advocate wearing red on Friday.
