The jeopardizing effects on health caused by heart disease and stroke have been increasing each passing day in America. Obesity and other unhealthy conditions have been subjecting more and more Americans to suffer from heart complications. As a result, several organizations decided to take the initiative of checking the spread of this disease. This involved governmental and nongovernmental agencies who felt that there was a dire need for Americans to be taught how to avoid these complications and how one can live well even after having suffered from the disease. Among the organizations that made the decision to indulge in the effort to curb the spread of this increasing threat was the American Heart Association.
The primary objective for the formation of the American Heart Association was to “share knowledge about heart disease” (Encyclopaedia of public health, 2009, par. 1). Since its formation in 1924, the organization witnessed a great improvement and in 1948, the institute received recognition as a voluntary health organization. The mission changed from simply sharing knowledge about heart disease to building lives that are healthier and without cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Currently, the organization is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. To facilitate its activities, the organization coordinates its activities with eight affiliates of the American heart association who are regionally based and hence perform local duties that promote the mission and vision of the American Heart Association. In total, the whole organization has a staff of more than 3,000. In addition, the organization works hand in hand with more than 22.5 million people who serve as volunteers who assist in promoting its objectives in different parts of the United States. Overall, the organization is governed by a board of directors which is comprised of scientific, medicinal, business, and industrial members (encyclopedia of public health, 2009, par.2).
To promote its main objective, the organization indulges in numerous activities. The main roles played include research, public health promotion, professional education and training, and community services. Beginning with research, the American Heart Association has given this field an upper hand within its programs. It has actively participated by funding research organizations to increase knowledge on the causes of this disease, how it can be treated and how the American population can be protected from contracting it. It has promoted research in areas where there are great gaps that are eventually causing uncontrollable deaths. For instance, cardiovascular disease has been rated as the major killer of women in America. In fact, it kills almost as many women as those killed by the four subsequent killer diseases in women combined (American Heart Association, 2009, par. 1). The association has therefore taken it as its role to ensure that research is done to ascertain the causes of increased cases of cardiovascular deaths in women.
In addition, the organization is currently promoting research to ascertain the causes of higher mortality among women who suffer from myocardial infarction as compared to men. The women also have a slower recovery rate as compared to their male counterparts when being treated for the same disease. The organization is therefore funding researches to promote the understanding of the logic behind this phenomenon so that women’s deaths can be controlled. Research is also being carried on cardiac arrests among younger women and heart failures in older women (American Heart Association, 2009, par. 1).
To promote their goals, the association has also engaged in the promotion of education for their professional members. This is aimed at promoting their knowledge on how they can educate the public and the patients and their families on how to deal with their conditions, how to treat them, and how to care about such patients. The association achieves this by availing relevant tools that are essential for the dialog encouragement and provision of information necessary for the patient’s resource needs. These tools include equipping the professionals with key knowledge on how they can encourage their patients to make wise treatment decisions and also informing them on the relevant programs and websites that are important for these patients. Subsequently, the professionals ensure that they pass this information to their patients (American Heart Association, 2009, par. 1). In addition, the association provides the professionals with tools like personal health records that are essential for determining the patient’s health record (past trends and current developments). This allows the practitioner to offer the most effective treatment that will also guarantee the safety of the patient.
The organization also embarks on community service to ensure that patients and their families have adequate information concerning cardiovascular complications. For the patients, the organization offers services like heart hub and personal health records. These are essential because they provide personal information for the patient’s trend so that one can understand the progress of his medication and also offer precise information to his doctor. In addition to this, society provides relevant information on how the patient can take care of him/herself. For example, it teaches the patient to know the warning signs of an impending attack. With this, the patient can be in a position to avoid unexpected attacks. The association also offers diet information to heart complication patients. This is relevant information as it enables the patient to have the right diet that would promote his general wellbeing (American Heart Association, 2009, par. 1).
Apart from directly getting involved with supporting the patients by offering them information on how to live positively with heart conditions, the association also involves itself with informing the patients where they can have assistance whenever they are in need of any. This involves the provision of information for the local assistance centers for the different forms of heart diseases. It also provides their contacts and free toll numbers for emergency cases. Finally, the association gives unique and special information on all forms of heart complications starting with arrhythmia, diabetes, heart attack, heart failure, high blood pressure, peripheral artery disease, and stroke. They deal with special issues in each case and how one can protect himself from them, how one can live positively with them, and the centers from which one can get assistance in case of any of them (American Heart Association, 2009, par. 1).
Apart from their devotion to patients, the association also has as its core objective, protecting the healthy American population from contracting the diseases. To achieve this, it engages itself in efforts to inform the healthy population of their risks and the calculation of such risks. The association informs the public on how they can check and assess their diabetes status and blood pressure. These are sometimes the major precursors to complicated heart conditions that are causing mortality in adults and children. In association with other organizations, the American Heart Association has embarked on programs to promote a healthy America in schools. They organize events from where they promote healthy diets by providing ways through which food served within and outside the cafeterias could be made healthy, providing mechanisms that would promote physical activities in the schools and outside the schools, pushing for classroom lessons that would promote healthy lifestyles and finally providing relevant wellness programs to the staff (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2009, par. 3).
Being a nonprofit organization, the American Heart Association is not a business and hence it does not have stakeholders. It is an organization whose voluntary membership aims at providing research solutions and giving recommendations concerning the treatment, prevention, and control of cardiac complications.
In conclusion, the American Heart Association is an organization that has a primary objective of ensuring that Americans live healthily by providing adequate researches concerning heart diseases and other health complications that can cause heart complications. It has promoted its mission by facilitation of research, provision of information to the professionals, provision of information to the patients on how to treat such complications, and also offering information to the healthy public on how they can live a safe life by eating healthy diets and ensuring physical activities to keep fit.
References
American Heart Association. (2009). About Us. Web.
Encyclopaedia of Public Health. (2009). American Heart Association. Web.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (2009). American Heart Association, Clinton Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Help Schools create a Healthier Environment for Nation’s Students. Web.