To achieve our strategic goals, we have organized our work into four programme areas: awareness raising, advocacy, applied research and sharing science and building capacity.
Awareness raising
Around the world, our members work to build awareness for the prevention and control of heart disease and stroke. Our aim is to raise awareness about the burden of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors. We have stand-out campaigns that educate those at risk and promote the benefits of heart-healthy diets, physical activity and tobacco-free lives. We look forward to building on the success of our World Heart Day and Go Red for Women campaigns, and sharing experience among our partners and supporters.
Notably we will be seeking to accomplish the following:
- Increased attention around World Heart Day: celebrated annually, events are run in more than 100 countries worldwide. Through these national and global events, we seek to increase the media attention of the themes, increase engagement with our target audiences and put this day on the map of globally recognized health days.
- Global reach for Go Red For Women: created by the American Heart Association, this campaign is now running in over 40 countries. We are aiming to increase the global reach and measure the impact of the campaign in raising awareness among women that cardiovascular disease is their leading cause of death.
- Facilitating best-practice sharing: aiming to provide a global resource centre, and a point of reference, we encourage our members to share best practices and learn from each other.
Advocacy
With our members and partners, we advocate for policy change in all areas linked to cardiovascular disease, such as tobacco control, diet and physical activity as well as improving employee health through workplace-wellness initiatives. We campaign for the inclusion of cardiovascular disease and other NCDs in the global health and development agenda to curb the growing epidemic of NCDs in low- and middle-income countries.
We will closely work with our members and partners to:
- Provide a voice to shape the global health agenda: ensure that the UN Summit on the Prevention and Control of NCDs results in measurable outcomes that will have a concrete beneficial impact on peoples’ lives around the world and that the necessary funding will be forthcoming.
- Advance tobacco control: make sure that policy makers have a greater understanding of the impact of tobacco on cardiovascular health and that all members have the capacity to work effectively towards national implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
- Advocate for change: working together with our sister federations and members we will continue to lobby for the rising burden of NCDs to be addressed in the global health and development agendas, and for their inclusion in the Millennium Development Goals. As well as advocating for increased access to affordable and effective essential cardiovascular medicines, and for the integration of NCDs into primary healthcare systems.
- Influence product policy: further to being at the forefront of discussions to secure a landmark global agreement banning soft drinks in schools, we will continue to effectively influence food industry practices and products.
Applied research
We seek to measurably reduce heart disease and stroke risk factors via resource-appropriate applied research projects. We work with ministries of health, members, health practitioners, partners and the World Health Organization to establish best-practice models for cost-effective prevention and control.
- Greater governmental commitment: we work towards increasing the level of governmental investment in applied research projects notably in low- and middle-income countries and to help member organizations increase their involvement in such projects.
- Increase focus on rheumatic heart disease (RHD): as the most common acquired cardiovascular disease in children and young adults, and a major public health problem in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, we aim to increase focus on RHD and expand applied research projects in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.
Sharing science and building capacity
We share science and build capacity with members’ networks, societies and foundations. We do this through a biennial global congress, our two peer-reviewed journals, and a variety of workshops, training courses and fellowships. Underpinning these efforts are world-leading scientific working groups focused on research, rheumatic heart disease, education and training.
- World Congress of Cardiology: building on this successful platform, we aim to present science from around the world and bring the congress to different geographies. Whilst continuing to emphasize the complementary nature of science and public outreach.
- Training opportunities: we aim to increase opportunities for education & training of cardiologists and allied health professionals from low- and middle-income countries.
- Strengthening systems: we will increase our focus on the organizational development of our members to help them become active and strong civil society organizations in their own countries.
