2008 Public Health Action Plan Update: Celebrating Our First Five Years

Action Plan Return to Action Plan Main Page  Sections Overview Milestones/Landmark Events Key Messages Action Plan: Celebrating 5 Years Reflections from the Chair of the Forum Commentary from AHA Commentary from ASTHO Commentary from NACDD and CHC Reducing Heart Disease and Stroke in the U.S. Burden and Disparities Today Making Connections Mission Statements/Strategies Review of  Components and Recommendations Action Framework Implementation Group's Priorities for 2008/2009 Appendix A Appendix B

Commentary From the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and the Cardiovascular Health Council

Kathy Foell, MS, RD
Director, Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention and Control Program
Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Miriam Patanian, MPH
Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Program Manager
Washington State Department of Health

Jennifer Smith, MSHP
Manager, Adult Health and Chronic Disease Group
Texas Department of State Health Services

The Cardiovascular Health (CVH) Council and its parent organization, the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD), are committed to implementing A Public Health Action Plan to Prevent Heart Disease and Stroke (Action Plan) at the state and national levels. We are equally committed to supporting the National Forum. CVH Council members proudly lend a public health perspective to the National Forum as participants on the Implementation Groups and in the overall management of the National Forum through service on both the Coordinating Board and Executive Committee.

The Action Plan and the National Forum are important to the states’ work to reduce the burden of heart disease and stroke. The Action Plan offers state-based programs a framework for building and implementing strategic state plans, and it serves as a succinct guide to help state-based programs develop interventions, take action, and strengthen capacity. The National Forum provides the CVH Council with a mechanism to receive guidance and support at a national level as we coordinate efforts to raise the visibility for increased funding for heart disease and stroke prevention.

In keeping with the components outlined in the Action Plan, state health departments are the focal point for assessing, analyzing, interpreting, and disseminating state-level heart disease and stroke data. Using the Action Plan framework, programs have undertaken planning processes to determine the burden of heart disease and stroke within their states, identify priority and high-risk populations, assess policy and environmental gaps, nurture partnerships, and develop interventions appropriate to meet the needs of their states. State-collected data are being used to inform, monitor, and evaluate program activities and interventions for heart disease and stroke prevention. States’ collaborative efforts with a wide range of partners help strengthen policies and procedures to improve access and use of high-quality interventions.

Through the CVH Council, state heart disease and stroke prevention programs share information on lessons learned, promising practices, and state findings. The National Forum provides an important avenue for expanding the dissemination of this information nationally and globally. And in turn, the diverse membership of the National Forum has the opportunity to learn how population-based interventions can be used to further the work of the National Forum.

The Update to A Public Health Action Plan to Prevent Heart Disease and Stroke reflects the accomplishments of the National Forum in implementing the Action Plan, and the CVH Council is proud to have had a significant role in these accomplishments. But we know that to reach our vision of a heart disease- and stroke-free nation, much work — individually and collectively through the National Forum — remains to be done: state-based programs continue to need national guidance to model partnerships and collaborations that can be duplicated; evidence-based interventions that will reduce heart disease and stroke must be developed; adequate funding to plan, implement, and evaluate comprehensive heart disease and stroke prevention programs must be secured.

As states continue to play a key role in implementing the recommendations of the Action Plan, we will see improved outcomes in prevention and treatment of heart disease and stroke and the wide array of chronic diseases that contribute to cardiovascular diseases. The CVH Council will continue to encourage state-based programs to collaborate with their tobacco, nutrition, physical activity, and diabetes colleagues to ensure that the primary risk factors for heart disease and stroke are being addressed through policy, system, and environmental change in local communities, worksites, and schools.

Together, the National Forum and the CVH Council of NACDD can support state health departments in making heart disease and stroke prevention a priority. Together our advocacy for resources so that health departments in all states, districts, tribes and territories are adequately funded to implement interventions and system level changes to promote heart disease and stroke prevention will be successful.
 

Back to Top

Page last reviewed: August 18, 2008
Page last modified: August 18, 2008
Content source: Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion