29th September: World Heart Day

This year, World Heart Day is focussing on how environments influence the health of our hearts.

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The World Heart Day website gives advice on a household, community and national level. So individuals are encourage to create a heart healthy home, stocked with fresh food not high in salt, fat or sugar, to decrease time sat in front of the television in favour of more active pastimes and to ban smoking from the home. In addition, individuals are encourages to visit health practitioners for screening tests, such as blood pressure measurements.

On a community level, there is a focus on petitioning for good street lighting and outdoor play areas, for catering provision to be healthy and for schools to provide enough physical education. Individual intervention in the community could include taking the stairs instead of the lift, walking or cycling to work instead of using the car or bus and asking directly for healthy food and smoking bans.

On  a national level, the responsibility to provide heart healthy environments falls on the policy makers. We've got links over on our publications page to articles about policies that could change to decrease not only CVD but other NCDs like diabetes and cancer.

You may also wish to look at:

 

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A Cost Effectiveness Analysis of Salt Reduction Policies to Reduce Coronary Heart Disease in Four Eastern Mediterranean Countries

 

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Physical activity in adults with and without diabetes: from the "high-risk" approach to the "population-based" approach of prevention

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Health policy analysis for prevention and control of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes mellitus in Turkey

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Living with diabetes and hypertension in Tunisia: popular perspectives on biomedical treatment.