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Actions for Governors
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Why should a governor promote heart–healthy and stroke–free
communities?
Governors hold an important and valuable position for protecting
the health of the people in their state. This document provides a
range of actions you can take to promote heart–healthy and stroke–free
communities, which revolve around five central themes:
The choice is yours. The time to act to address heart disease and
stroke is now.
Demonstrate leadership
- Be a role model: display educational materials and establish
worksite policies to support heart health in your office. Share your
heart–healthy activities with the media (e.g., getting your blood
pressure checked, using the stairs). If you or a family member has
cardiovascular disease, share your story.1
- Be an advocate for people in your state to adopt a heart–healthy
lifestyle. Sign a resolution for your state to observe heart month and
stroke month with related activities.1
- Be a champion: create a task force or working group on heart
disease and stroke.1
- Publicly support a statewide quitline to provide all smokers with
access to the support and latest information to help them quit.2
- Host awareness campaigns about the
* Signs and symptoms of heart attacks and stroke.2
* Urgency of calling 9–1–1 when these signs and symptoms first appear.2
* Prevention of risk factors, such as physical inactivity and smoking.3
- Actively support mass media efforts to prevent tobacco use.3
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Implement policies and incentives to make healthy choices the easy
choices
- Provide recognition awards to employers in your state that have
implemented worksite health promotion programs. Elements of such
programs include
* Placing signs by elevators that encourage people to use the stairs.3
* Promoting healthy food options in cafeterias and vending machines.2
* Incorporate preventive services into health plans.2
* Providing services such as screening and treatment for high blood
pressure, high
cholesterol, smoking, and high blood glucose.2
* Establish smoke–free work sites.3
* Ensure coverage for prescription drugs used to prevent heart
disease and stroke.2
- Promote coordinated school health programs, which can prevent risk
behaviors that contribute to heart disease and stroke by
* Maintaining or adopting enhanced physical education classes.3
* Serving and promoting heart–healthy food in cafeterias and vending machines.2
* Implementing smoke–free schools and campuses.3
* Prohibiting withholding of recess as punishment.1
- Recognize localities that update zoning codes to encourage
high–density and mixed land use, thereby increasing opportunities for
walking and biking.2
- Create opportunities for physical activity, such as
* Walking and biking trails coupled with education efforts.3
* Policies that encourage use of mass transit, walking, and biking.2
* Walk–to–school initiatives.2
- Assess the value of increasing excise taxes on tobacco products in
your state.3
- Set an example by establishing a tobacco–free policy in public
buildings, including schools and campuses. Support other tobacco–free
policies such as prohibiting smoking in all enclosed workplaces,
public places, government buildings, restaurants, bars, and gaming facilities.3
- Designate use of Master Settlement Agreement funds or other dollars
for comprehensive tobacco prevention programs. Target these programs
to vulnerable populations.1
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Promote coverage for and use of preventive health services
- Work with insurers in your state to develop health benefits packages
that include preventive services and incentives for preventing
cardiovascular disease.2
- Work with small businesses and insurers to develop policies that allow
small business groups to buy into group health plans, as self–insured
organizations do.1
- Assess the status of or make changes to your Medicaid program to
promote reimbursement for preventive services for cardiovascular
disease that emphasize quality, cost–effective medical care.2
- Work with your insurance commissioner or department to monitor health
insurance benefits and ensure that they include services to prevent
cardiovascular disease.1
- Include heart disease and stroke as part of minority health
initiatives and partner with safety–net providers (e.g., community
health centers, migrant health clinics).1
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Implement life–saving improvements in health services and medical
response
- Ensure that all communities in your state have access to 9–1–1.
Establish wireless, enhanced 9–1–1 (WE9–1–1), which allows an
emergency call center to capture the precise location of a caller.2
- Ensure that your state health care system treats stroke as a true
medical emergency and that everyone in your state has access to a
coordinated system of stroke care.2
- Encourage primary care settings to enhance patient care management for
high blood pressure, cholesterol, and heart disease, using such
approaches as the Chronic Care Model.2
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Use your authority to strengthen state efforts to address heart
disease and stroke
- Support health impact studies and economic evaluations related to
proposed legislation affecting issues such as land use and
transportation.1
- Support policies to make heart attacks and acute strokes reportable
conditions so that the state health department can use these data to
promote and evaluate improvements in emergency response and hospital
care.1
- Support efforts by your state health and education departments to
address heart disease and stroke and their risk factors.1
- Support data collection efforts and the sharing of data to document
progress in preventing heart disease and stroke and their risk
factors. Examples of data sources include the
Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), the Behavioral Risk
Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), and the Health Plan Employer Data
and Information Set (HEDIS).1
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To view some examples of policies that promote heart–healthy and
stroke–free communities, click
HERE.
What the Symbols Mean
The actions in this document are divided into
three categories, which are indicated by the number following
each action.
1
Approaches that will bring visibility and support to the
issues of heart disease and stroke.
2 Interventions
found be several studies or scientific reviews to support the
cardiovascular health.
3 Interventions
recommended by CDC's Guide to Community Preventive Services or
clinical guidelines.
References for level 2 and level
3 actions are
listed on the link titled References
above. References for level 2 include
pre/post, quasi–experimental, and experimental studies. |
Date last reviewed:
05/12/2006
Content source: Division for Heart Disease and Stroke
Prevention,
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and
Health Promotion |
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