Actions for State Legislators

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Why should a state legislator promote heart–healthy and stroke–free communities?

State legislators 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:

• Demonstrate leadership.
• Implement policies and incentives to make healthy choices the easy choices.
• Promote coverage for and use of preventive health services.
• Implement life–saving improvements in health services and medical response.
• Use your authority to strengthen state efforts to address heart disease and stroke.

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.
   
• Be a champion: create or serve on a statewide task force on heart disease and stroke.¹
   
• Support awareness campaigns about the
  * Signs and symptoms of heart attacks and stroke.²
  * Urgency of calling 9–1–1 when someone is having a heart attack or stroke.²
  * Prevention of risk factors, such as physical inactivity and smoking.³
   
• Publicly support a statewide quitline to provide all smokers with access to the support and latest information to help them quit.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

• Gather employers in your state to explore offering worksite health promotion programs. Elements of such programs include
  * Placing signs placed by elevators that encourage people to use the stairs.³
  * Promoting healthy options in cafeterias and vending machines.²
  * Incorporating 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
  * Establishing smoke-free worksites.³
  * Ensuring coverage for prescription drugs used to prevent heart disease and stroke.²
   
• 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
   
• Assess the value of increasing excise taxes on tobacco products in your state.³
   
• 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

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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
   
• Work with the office that oversees the state health employee benefits plan to include preventive services and incentives for prevention. Ensure that school employees can participate in the health insurance program.²
   
• Work with your insurance commissioner or department to monitor health insurance benefits and ensure that they include services to prevent cardiovascular disease.¹
   
• Recommend changes to your Medicaid program to promote reimbursement for preventive services that emphasize quality, cost–effective medical care.²

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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 everyone in your state has access to a coordinated system of care that treats stroke as a medical emergency and provides the latest treatment advances that can significantly reduce death and disability.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 data collection efforts and the sharing of data to document progress in preventing heart disease and stroke and their related 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
   
• 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

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To view some examples of policies that promote heart–healthy and stroke–free communities, click HERE.

Date last reviewed: 05/12/2006
Content source: Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion