Today is World Heart Day. The theme for the 2024 World Heart Day focuses on motivating individuals to look after their heart health and aims to encourage and empower individuals to take responsibility for the health of their heart, advocate stronger initiatives and take steps aimed at improving heart health.

This year, the World Health Organization (WHO) is asking the world to know that Cardiovascular Disease is the number one cause of death on the planet. It has many causes including smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, air pollution, rare and neglected conditions such as Chagas Disease which is a disease of a genius of mosquitoes of the tribe of anopheline.

Cardiovascular health should concern every living person in the world. From hereditary conditions to lifestyle habits including eating habits, exercise, societal and environmental contexts such as air pollutionfa and other numerous threats.

Heart is the viscus of Cardiac Muscles that maintains the circulation of the blood.

Smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise , obesity, low blood pressure, poor blood sugar and cholesterol control, are risk factors that lead to heart disease. If these lifestyle factors are modified, this might decrease the risk of heart disease.

Through the Global Hearts Initiative, WHO is supporting governments around the world to scale-up efforts on Cardiovascular Diseases prevention and control through tobacco control, salt reduction and strengthening of Cardiovascular Diseases management in primary health care.

Launched in September 2016, the Global Hearts Initiative has since been rolled out in a number of countries. In those settings, health workers are being trained to deliver tested and affordable measures to protect people from Cardiovascular Diseases and help them to recover, following a heart attack or stroke. A new global initiative – Resolve to Save Lives – will give renewed impetus to these efforts.

To understand what it takes to live a heart healthy life and to act on that knowledge, changing our behaviour for a better quality of life now and in the future is paramount. As individuals, we must set examples for our loved ones. Healthcare professionals should help patients to make positive changes for their heart health. Employers, should invest in the heart health of employees and government should implement policies and initiatives that will lead to better societal Heart Health, such as sugar, taxes, smoking bans and reducing air pollution.

Inclusive heart health should be anchored on adequate investment, infrastructure, education, and data protection protocols. Education should include digital literacy for many who are not used to technology as a health resource, including those in the health workforce.

Heart health initiatives should also contribute to achieving Universal Health Coverage which is a target of the third Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), and be a game changer for the more than seven hundred and thirty-four million people worldwide who do not have access to healthcare.

Raising mass public awareness of the need for equitable access to heart healthcare should be a collective responsibility of all stakeholders to beat Cardiovascular Diseases.

PROFESSOR PETER KATCHY

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