The purpose of HeartSmarts is to empower people to live heart healthy lifestyles. Cardiovascular disease, which includes coronary heart disease and stroke, is the leading cause of death in the United States. Blacks and Hispanics in underserved communities are at the greatest risk for both heart disease and stroke. The good news is that cardiovascular disease is largely preventable. The goal of the HeartSmarts program is to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease.
The goal of the HeartSmarts program is to increase the knowledge of heart disease and its prevention in underserved, high risk communities. Read more about the HeartSmarts program here.
Through “HeartSmarts” we would like to partner with your organization to educate the members about heart disease and its prevention. Learn more about the Ambassador Training
HeartSmarts ambassadors provide various services in their communities including blood pressure screening and cardiovascular health information.
HeartSmarts Ambassadors come from various backgrounds. Some are heart attack survivors while others are community activists. Learn more about them here.
Participants of the HeartSmarts program have made various changes that have helped to improve their health. Read more about these changes and success stories here.
Knowing CPR can be a matter of life and death. Participants of the HeartSmarts program have the opportunity to be trained in CPR. Read more here
The HeartSmarts research program was developed to educate communities about cardiovascular health in a unique way. Since 2011, HeartSmarts participants have increased their knowledge about cardiovascular health, improved their blood pressure, and lost weight. Participants have also improved their health behaviors. HeartSmarts has been recognized as a model for community based health promotion. We hope to continue to expand the program and reach new communities. The work of the HeartSmarts ambassadors is much needed and we are grateful for their dedication.
Life is a gift – it should be celebrated, but it should also be cared for. Heart disease is the number one cause of death for both men and women worldwide. There is nowhere that it strikes harder than in our African American communities. This disease is largely preventable, and we at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute strongly believe that increasing our society’s understanding of this disease through the HeartSmarts program will save lives.
The original 12-week HeartSmarts program that focuses on the basics of disease.
Follow-up program to HeartSmarts part one that focuses on the power of plant based nutrition in overall health.
Culturally tailored exercise program aimed at increasing physical activity and improving overall health.
Men only HeartSmarts classes with a specific focus on the health issues that impact men.
HeartSmarts en Espanol provides the curriculum for all HeartSmarts classes in Spanish.
Secular HeartSmarts classes tailored specifically for clinical and other non-faith based settings.
Before Reverend Dr. Rose Ellington Murray became a HeartSmarts Ambassador, she wasn’t practicing what she was preaching when it came to her health.
A program seeks to use faith and lessons from the Bible to persuade minority congregants of churches throughout New York to embrace healthier lifestyles.
Dr. Naa-Solo Tettey teaches a class of HeartSmarts, the faith-based cardiovascular health education program created by Tettey in 2011 to improve health outcomes.
The HeartSmarts program at the Perelman Institute highlights the important role that religion can play in disease prevention efforts in underserved communities.
It is now well documented that there are profound race-associated disparities among those who are affected by and die from cardiovascular disease. These disparities are deeply rooted within the history of race and medicine in the US. Blacks continue to have the highest burden of coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality among all ethnic groups in the US, despite an overall decline in CHD-related mortality among the general population. Black patients also have a higher prevalence of CVD risk factors (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and obesity) than white patients. This persistent incongruity has compelled investigators to look beyond traditional risk factors for CVD towards psychosocial risk factors in an effort to better comprehend and offer solutions to the issue. Individual psychological stress has emerged as a potential nontraditional CVD risk factor that has garnered much attention. There is a growing interest in elucidating how chronic exposure to racial/ethnic discrimination, a psychosocial stressor, contributes to observed CVD and cardiovascular care disparities.
Racial and ethnic discrimination has been postulated as a multidimensional environmental stressor at the societal and individual levels. That is, there are physiological consequences of chronic exposure to fluctuating or heightened neural or neuroendocrine response that results from repeated or chronic stress. Over time, these stressful life experiences can have detrimental effects on the health of people in historically marginalized groups. There is now compelling evidence linking the perception of racism to cardiovascular health. Race-related stress is perceived by many blacks as an influential factor.
Give customers a reason to do business with you. Race-based discriminatory attitudes and behaviors by health care professionals may contribute to suboptimal diagnosis and management of CVD among patients from minority groups, particularly blacks. Additionally, entrenched institutional racism leads to inequities in access to and quality of health care. Studies have demonstrated pervasive disparities between treatment of blacks and whites in health care delivery in realms such as clinician adherence to prescribing guidelines, therapy intensification, and use of invasive cardiac procedures
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The Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center provides patients with advanced cardiac care — from new minimally invasive procedures and medications to innovative specialized approaches —to prevent and treat heart disease in men and women. With its welcoming, stylish, five-story atrium, the Institute is the ideal setting for discovery and healing through innovative methods of diagnoses, treatment, clinical research, and education. It expands upon the Hospital's existing cardiac care expertise and connects all cardiac services — plus it adds a layer of public and patient education not available at other hospitals. The end result — enhanced patient experience, reduced infections, faster recoveries, disease prevention, education and, perhaps most important, improved patient outcomes.