Earlier this month, I couldn’t help but smile at all the red and pink hearts that decorated the businesses around my home and at all the advertisements reminding me to show my love with gifts of flowers and chocolates.
Of course, in my line of work, I think about hearts every day, though my focus is on more weighty matters of the heart: heart health.
While we’ve seen major advances in our ability to treat cardiovascular disease in the past 25 years, we still have a long way to go in improving our nation’s cardiovascular health, a fact Dr. Elliott Antman, president of the American Heart Association (AHA), knows well. In the Thought Leader Perspective video he recorded recently as part of our celebration of 25 years of America’s Health Rankings®, he notes that cardiovascular death rates have declined by more than 30 percent in the last decade alone, but our nation remains in the grip of heart disease. Our rising rates of obesity, physical inactivity and high blood pressure are worrisome heart health trends.
However, Dr. Antman is looking forward with optimism to the next 25 years, and in his video he talks passionately about how organizations like the AHA are turning to technology and big data, embracing the information age and beginning to think differently about the treatment and management of cardiovascular disease. From blood pressure cuffs that send data directly to your smart phone to a database that will ensure the latest genetic learnings inform personalized treatment plans for individuals, he clearly sees the next few years as a pivotal time in cardiology.
At United Health Foundation, we share Dr. Antman’s forward thinking, proactive approach to heart health. In fact, we’ve just announced a partnership with the American Medical Group Foundation on its Measure Up/Pressure Down® campaign. This national campaign brings together health organizations, providers, patients and employers in a nation-wide effort to improve blood pressure control. Our collective goal is to make lasting improvements to our health and our productivity as well as reduce costs in our health system.
I hope you had an opportunity on Feb. 14 to share some chocolates or a little heart-shaped card with someone you love. I hope you also let them know that you care about their heart all year long, and I encourage you to have conversations with the ones you love about ways we can all improve our heart health, perhaps during a long walk, hand-in-hand. Whether it is a conversation about eating healthier, moving more or stopping smoking, you and your loved ones can set health goals together now for a lifetime of better health.