About Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at CDC

	Factors which put people at increased risk for heart disease and stroke include: • High Blood Pressure • High Blood Cholesterol • Tobacco Use • Physical Inactivity • Dietary Factors • Overweight / obesity • Diabetes

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), principally heart disease and stroke, are among the nation's leading killers for both men and women among all racial and ethnic groups.

• More than 80 million Americans have some form of CVD, including high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and other conditions. This is about 1 in 3 adults.

• It is estimated that 935,000 Americans have a heart attack each year.
   
• About 795,000 strokes occur each year among Americans.

• CVD will cost the nation an estimated $475.3 billion in 2009, including health expenditures and lost productivity.

Source: American Heart Association, Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics – 2009 Update. Dallas: AHA, 2009.

Until fiscal year 1998, no federal funding had been directed to states to specifically target heart disease and stroke for many years. Most state funds came through the general Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant. In 1998, CDC received funding for states to develop comprehensive heart disease and stroke prevention programs. Currently, 32 states and the District of Columbia receive this funding.

• Click HERE to see a brief history of cardiovascular health activities within the CDC.
   

CDC's heart disease and stroke prevention activities are carried out within the CDC's DHDSP. Relevant activities are also carried out by the CDC's Division of Adult and Community Health, the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity, Office on Smoking and Health, Division of Diabetes Translation, the Division of Adolescent and School Health and the Office of Genomics and Disease Prevention. CDC's National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disorders addresses related blood conditions, and the National Center for Environmental Health carries out laboratory–based activities relevant to heart disease and stroke.

About DHDSP - Our Strategic Plan

One or more of the following files are available in Portable Document Format (PDF). Learn more about PDFs.

Click HERE to download our Strategic Plan [PDF-745K]

Our Goals and Strategies

Prevent Risk Factors for Heart Disease and Stroke

• Increase public awareness.

• Involve new partners.

• Test and share public health prevention strategies.

• Increase measurement of risk factors across life stages.

• Focus on high-risk populations to eliminate disparities.

• Promote policy changes that encourage healthy behaviors and environments.

Increase Detection and Treatment of Risk Factors

• Increase availability of preventive services.

• Promote strategies to identify and treat high-risk populations.

• Test and share strategies that promote adherence to clinical guidelines.

Increase Early Detection and Treatment of Heart Disease and Stroke

• Increase capacity to monitor and address disparities and outcomes.

• Promote coordinated systems of care policies.

• Test and share strategies that increase early detection and treatment.

• Increase timely and affordable treatment options for everyone.

Decrease Recurrences of Heart Attacks and Strokes

• Increase ability to track and address disparities among people living with the disease.

• Accelerate translation of evidence-based practices.

• Work with health professionals and communities to overcome barriers for preventing recurrent events.

• Promote an increase in the availability of health services.

Foster a Skilled and Engaged Public Health Workforce

• Increase the skills and capacity of the public health workforce to address heart disease and stroke

• Create and maintain a skilled workforce and positive work environment within CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention.

Our Core Functions

We are committed to being good stewards of public funds. We use the best science and resources available to develop interventions and programs that prevent, detect, and treat heart disease and stroke regardless of gender, disability, race, ethnicity, age, or socioeconomic status.

Resource Management:  We promote integrity and accountability in all of our administrative transactions. We work to ensure that our recruitment, retention, and training policies sustain a highly skilled and diverse workforce.

Programs:  We provide funding, technical support, and resources to state health departments, tribes, and other partners to increase their capacity to reduce health disparities and prevent heart disease and stroke throughout the lifespan.

Partnerships:  Our partnerships with government agencies, states, public and private organizations, and academic researchers allow us to maximize our collective resources in promoting heart-healthy and stroke-free communities.

Research:  We engage in applied research to support evidence-based practice. Through our research, science translation, and resource development, we help state and national health agencies implement public health strategies to address the burden of heart disease and stroke.

Surveillance:  We track trends in cardiovascular risk factors and diseases and document differences in their distribution by age, gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic location. We share these findings with our many partners and collaborate in applying public health strategies to improve cardiovascular health.

Evaluation:  We evaluate programs, policies, and interventions regularly to ensure they are working as planned and producing the intended results.

Our Unique Perspective

Through our resources, evidence-based strategies, and extensive reach, we work to improve cardiovascular health through three major areas of focus: Science, Connections, and Action.

	Our access to public health data and our ability to gather knowledge and new evidence are unique. Our scientific credibility and expertise translate into informed solutions and better use of resources.
	We build upon our valued relationships to maximize resources and influence the future.
	Our programs translate science into action. We bring a sense of urgency to the prevention of heart disease and stroke and offer the means to create positive change.

Our Mission

To serve as the nation's public health leader for achieving cardiovascular health for all and for eliminating disparities in the burden of heart disease and stroke.

Our Vision

A heart-healthy and stroke-free world.

Our Values

• Accountability
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Integrity
• Leadership
• Respect
• Service

Division Evaluation Plan

Click HERE to download our Evaluation Plan [PDF-562K]

Relevance: Is the Division Engaged in the Most Appropriate Activities?

After interviewing key Division stakeholders, we identified what we considered to be the essential components of a "successful" Division. Guided by these core elements, we constructed the three-part conceptual model below to illustrate how we conduct our work, what public health strategies we use, and why we exist.

HOW we conduct our work.  The outer ring of the model indicates the mechanisms through which we accomplish our work in the Division. Leadership, workforce, and resources are critical elements in accompanying our public health mission. We apply these elements through strategic planning and expand our work through collaboration with partners. Applying these elements to eliminate disparities is a guiding principle within and across all of our activities and programs.

WHAT strategies we use.  The middle ring represents our activities in the areas of evaluation, surveillance, communication, policy, programs, and research. These activities represent our principal tools in achieving public health impact.

WHY we exist.  the center of the model reflects our Division's mission—to serve as the nation's public health leader for achieving cardiovascular health for all and eliminating disparities in the burden of heart disease and stroke. Our mission is achieved by applying the mechanisms and activities in the outer and middle rings.

Quality: Are Division Activities Well Implemented?

The quality of our work is measured by our ability to promote effective public health strategies. A number of factors impact the quality of our work, including how much influence we have over the implementation of strategies and how much time it takes to achieve outcomes. These principles are basic to all evaluation questions and help determine our evaluation priorities for the Division.

Our ability to promote effective public health strategies starts with the first portion (left side) of our Division planning logic model below. These elements are needed to accomplish our daily work. By ensuring that these elements are adequate and communicated effectively to staff, we will improve our organization as well as the efficiency of our work.

Impact: Is the Division's Work Having the Intended Effect?

Impacts noted on the second (right side) portion of the logic model reflects our Division goals and those identified in A Public Health Action Plan to Prevent Heart Disease and Stroke. These elements will be used to assess the longer-term impact of collaborative efforts with and among our partners.

Executive Summary

Within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, we have developed an Evaluation Plan to assess the relevance, quality, and impact of our Division activities.

This plan includes our many cross-cutting activities intended to achieve the goals within our strategic plan.

We designed this plan to be flexible enough to adapt to a dynamic environment over time. This flexibility will be critical in monitoring our short- and long-term progress in achieving our public health mission and goals.

Benefits of the Evaluation Plan

Through our Evaluation Plan, our ultimate goal is to capture information related to our long-term public health impact on reducing the burden of heart disease and stroke. Although direct causality related to the Division's work will be difficult to assess, measuring outcomes, along with process-level variables, will help us demonstrate our progress toward improving the public's health.

Evaluation Plan Priorities

Our Evaluation Plan lays out systems and processes by which we can evaluate the breadth of our Division activities through the logic model. However, evaluating the long-term impact is not appropriate in the near term because the distal goals, existing well outside the Division's direct influence, require coordination of both intervention and evaluation activities with partners as well as sufficient time to lay the foundation for achievement. To this end, we are focusing our immediate evaluation efforts on translation and dissemination activities and on short-term adoption, practice, and sustainability outcomes (i.e., the left side of the logic model). The following assessments are, therefore, our highest priorities:

• Assess the management, coordination, and staff development within the Division.
• Translate and disseminate the current knowledge base; identify ways to improve it.
• Enhance the ability of programs to apply findings to improve public health.

As reflected by our priority assessments, we believe that strong management and coordination, together with staff development, are critical in creating the foundation needed to carry out our activities and achieve short-term outcomes. These assessments will require us to determine our effectiveness in setting a public health agenda and in leading national planning efforts. Such information will help us accomplish the following:

• Identify areas for improvement.
• Plan appropriate corrective action.
• Focus quality improvement efforts.
• Ensure that the right actions are taken to improve our performance over time.

Page last reviewed: September 2, 2009
Page last modified: September 2, 2009

Content source: Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion