Championing Health Equity
for All

Removing barriers so everyone can enjoy a full, healthy life
Woman holding Equal sign

The American Heart Association’s 2024 Goal

Every person deserves the opportunity for a full, healthy life. As champions for health equity, by 2024, the American Heart Association will advance cardiovascular health for all, including identifying and removing barriers to health care access and quality.
10 Commitments for Health Equity report cover

Fulfilling Our Commitments

我们承诺采取10项大胆行动,消除卫生公平的障碍,因为所有人都应该享有健康的生活. 在数百万志愿者和支持者的支持下,我们将在2024年前履行这些承诺.

Our progress on the Commitments (PDF)(link opens in new window)


The Urgent Need for Health Equity

Family interacting during COVID19多年来,我们一直在努力确保每个人都有最佳的、公平的机会保持健康. 但对于许多有色人种和其他因无法控制的社会因素而健康受损的人来说,事实并非如此. In fact, 在一些资源不足的邮政编码地区,人们的预期寿命比几英里外的邻居要短. 在偏远的农村地区,心脏病和中风的死亡率要高得多.

COVID-19 has illuminated these unacceptable health disparities and worsened the problems. The pandemic and economic hardships have disproportionately harmed the health of Black, Latino and Native American people. 这就是为什么我们的2024年影响目标肯定了我们的重点是确定和消除卫生公平的障碍.

Equitable Health for All

美国心脏协会致力于促进健康公平——只有当 all people can have the opportunity to enjoy healthier lives. We’re removing barriers to health through work in communities, scientific research, advocating for healthy policies and more. Please join us on this critical journey.
diverse group portrait standing

The Human Toll

We are striving toward health equity for a simple reason: Lives are at stake. 当人们无法获得优质护理、营养食品和其他基本卫生需求时,他们就会感到痛苦. 没有机会享受充实、健康的生活,人们往往会病得更重,死得更早. 

Eliminating the Barriers to Health Equity 

Social Determinants of Health

People in a food line


人们的生活条件是由金钱、权力和资源的分配决定的.

Structural Racism

People holding stop racism signs


A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations and norms perpetuate racial inequity.

Mending Rural Health


农村社区的人比城市或郊区的人病得更重,死得更快. The AHA is determined to close this health care gap, through advocacy, education and by funding research.

A Closer Look at the Community Impact

农村健康|美国农村居民因心脏病和中风而面临更高的死亡率, lower life expectancy and higher maternal mortality. We are committed to changing this picture. 这段视频突出了西弗吉尼亚州的独特问题,以及我们在全国各地农村社区投资的一些解决方案.
The Power of Social Impact | Health doesn’t begin at the doctor’s office. 美国心脏协会的社会影响基金正在通过支持可以改变社区和改善那里每个人生活的项目来帮助缩小这一差距.

Our Commitments

We believe everyone deserves the opportunity for a full, healthy life

作为卫生公平的捍卫者,我们致力于促进所有人的心血管健康. We will not stand by while people get sick.

We will advance cardiovascular health for all. We will not stand by while people suffer. We won’t watch people get sick, die young and struggle. We will not tolerate structural racism, or the many social factors that hurt people’s health in rural and urban areas alike.

我们正在采取大胆行动——我们称之为我们的十项承诺——消除健康障碍. 作为一个近100年来坚持不懈地致力于拯救和改善生命的组织, we have faced urgent health crises before. And now, with the strength of our millions of volunteers, supporters, partners and collaborators, we are urgently doubling down at this unique point in history. 以下是我们为通过科学消除卫生公平障碍而作出的承诺, community investment, improvements to health care access and quality, advocating for change and more.

1 Investing 1亿美元用于新的研究项目和赠款,重点关注以科学为基础的解决卫生不平等和结构性种族主义的办法. 我们还将通过拨款为科学和医学领域未被充分代表的种族和族裔群体扩大多样性研究机会, STEM programs, and our HBCU and EmPOWERED to Serve Scholars programs.
2 Investing in community-led solutions to address health inequity and structural racism. Specifically, 我们将筹集和投资至少1亿美元,通过我们的社会影响基金在社区一级消除妨碍保健公平的障碍, the Bernard J. Tyson Impact Fund, and our community issues campaigns, including Voices for Healthy Kids.
3 Improving 资源不足人口和农村社区人口获得保健服务的机会和质量, as part of our 50-state focus on Medicaid expansion. 我们还将致力于我们的宣传和社区资源,以确保在所有缺乏扩大准入的州实现这一覆盖.
4 Leveraging our advocacy, 科学和沙巴足球体育平台媒体企业反对以弱势社区个人为目标的公司提供不健康产品,包括含糖饮料和含有令人上瘾的香料和薄荷醇的烟草产品(包括电子烟).
5 Launching, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), 这是一项耗资1.21亿美元的全国性高血压倡议,旨在解决黑人心血管健康状况不佳的主要原因, Hispanic, and Indigenous communities, funded by the federal government. 根据这一伙伴关系,我们将与卫生与公众服务部合作,支持由卫生资源和服务管理局(HRSA)资助的一些卫生中心和相关社区. The collective aim is to elevate quality of care delivered in these Centers, provide evidence-based education to providers and clinicians, and engage patients with training to effectively control hypertension. AHA还将利用并扩大其在联邦合格健康中心(FQHC)现有的高血压项目。.
6 Using 我们广泛的临床登记项目,以获取数据并创造新的科学知识,以了解种族和民族群体之间健康和医疗质量差异的社会决定因素对健康的影响, and reporting on this data regularly through our quality improvement programs.
7 Collaborating with our CEO Roundtable to architect a road map, conceptual framework, and related tools 雇主应查明并废除导致结构性种族主义和健康不平等的工作场所做法和政策, 所有这些都是基于美国心脏协会总统咨询行动呼吁:结构性种族主义是健康差距的根本驱动因素.
8 Creating a digital learning platform for clinicians, health professionals, 还有一些科学家,他们的课程是关于扭转结构性种族主义和改善卫生保健服务中的卫生公平问题, and courses on professional development of the science and clinical workforce. 在我们的科学会议上,我们将继续推动演讲者和评论员的多样性.
9 Elevating the focus of our scientific journals, including Circulation and Stroke, on disparities, anti-racism, health equity, community engaged/community based participatory research and implementation science. We will ensure these topics are prioritized for publication, and we will assess the diversity of authors in our journals, including editorial commentaries.
10 Increasing the diversity of our workforce, including leadership. We are committed to filling at least one-third of hires with diverse individuals. We will mitigate bias in the recruitment, development, 通过提供持续的学习和发展经验来提升和留住不同的同事, leveraging our behavioral and integrated interviewing system, incorporating industry leading platforms and working with diverse alliance partners.