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Special thanks to volunteer Dr. Shobha Ghosh, who spoke yesterday on behalf of the AHA at a Washington, D.C. press conference where advocates called on Congress to end sequestration and avoid drastic budget cuts for nondefense discretionary programs in a wide range of areas, including science and public health. Dr. Ghosh joined other speakers in presenting a letter signed by 2,500 national, state and local organizations calling on Congress to raise spending caps and end sequestration through a bipartisan budget deal. Dr. Ghosh is Associate Chair for Research at Virginia Commonwealth Medical Center.

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AHA Honors MAA Volunteers

The AHA honored several leading volunteers at its annual Awards Luncheon in Dallas on June 24. Congratulations to the MAA's prestigious award winners!

Awards of Meritorious Achievement  were presented to Pegui  Maridueña, CMC, MBA, and Bertram L. Scott. They were  recognized for their leadership and guidance as advisors for multicultural  inclusiveness and relevance in AHA communications and marketing campaigns,  including the Life is Why branding platform. Maridueña is president of  StarMar Consulting in Alpharetta, Georgia. Scott is senior vice president of  population health at Novant Health, Inc., in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Ron  Haddock AHA/ASA International Impact Award was presented to Sidney C. Smith, Jr., MD, FAHA. The  award recognizes important service in support of the association's  international programs. Smith, a professor of medicine at the University of  North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a senior advisor to the National Heart,  Lung, and Blood Institute, was honored for his important, enduring  contributions to the AHA's efforts to address the global impact of  non-communicable diseases and also advance the quality of care in hospitals  worldwide through the implementation of Get With The Guidelines and other  quality programs. Smith was the association's president in 1995-96. 

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We had a great board orientation last week, welcoming five new members to our MAA Board of Directors:  Martin Davis from Charlotte, NC; Chris William from Charlotte, NC; Peg O'Connell from Morrisville, NC; Calvin "Woody Fowler from Richmond, VA and Alan Speir from Falls Church, VA. Here is a picture with our outgoing and incoming Presidents and Chairs of the Board, left to right, David Hefner, Stuart Smith, Jeremy Beauchamp, Wayne Rosamond and Paul Matherne.  

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MAA Volunteers Share their Stories on National Stage

Our Youth Market team has worked hard and exceeded the money raised in last year’s breakout growth year. This week, Nancy Brown’s blog featured a student from Durham, NC who raised more than $60K for Jump Rope for Heart this year. I have a couple of national media hits to share that tell the stories of two Mid-Atlantic survivor volunteers. For Mother’s Day, WomensDay.com featured mom-and-daughter and local Raleigh, NC volunteers, Kay LaVelle, 66, and Jill Morin, 43. Both women had undiagnosed cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that can lead to congestive heart failure or cardiac arrest. And what they didn't know almost killed them. Read more here.  For May’s Stroke Awareness Month, DC-area mom, wife, lawyer and stroke hero Anne Dailey was featured on The Balancing Act, a morning television show airing nationwide on Lifetime. Watch her interview here.  

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MAA Advocates win National Award at Federal Lobby Day 2015

Earlier this month, more than 380 volunteers, including a large contingent of advocates from the Mid-Atlantic Affiliate, descended on Washington D.C. for You’re the Cure on the Hill.   Volunteers met with lawmakers, asking them to protect the progress made by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act and support school nutrition standards, and to make cardiovascular disease and stroke research a national priority by increasing the budget of the National Institutes of Health. 

During the two-day event, Nancy Brown, AHA CEO and AHA President Elliott Antman, MD presented this year's prestigious national Advocacy Awards. I’m pleased to share that two of the four awardee’s are from the MAA.  Congratulations to AHA Science Advocate of the Year  Dr. David Huang of Chapel Hill, NC and Youth Advocate of the Year Cassidy Collins of Hickory, NC.  You can learn more about these outstanding volunteers by clicking on their names to view their videos.

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American Stroke Month is in full swing and we were excited to see DC-area mom, wife, lawyer and stroke hero Anne Dailey featured in Nancy’s blog on the Huffington Post Monday.   Anne was also featured Thursday and will be again May 14 at 7:30 a.m. on The Balancing Act, a morning television show airing nationwide on Lifetime. 

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This May, for American Stroke Month, our motto is “anyone can have a stroke, everyone should be ready.”  By sharing the warning signs and how to take action when faced with stroke, anyone can become a Stroke Hero.  Ask your network to test their knowledge by taking our F.A.S.T. quiz and help us encourage others to increase the amount of F.A.S.T. Heroes in the MAA and across the country.  Download our free Spot a Stroke F.A.S.T. mobile app to help you identify the signs of stroke.

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DC Stroke law

We have some exciting news from the Washington, DC market. The Stroke System of Care Act officially became law.  The law recognizes all three tiers of stroke facilities and requires EMS authorities to develop and implement transport protocols for acute stroke patients. Additionally, the law requires the creation of a centralized stroke registry in DC and requires that all three tiers of designated facilities in DC report data to the stroke registry as well. This will make a huge difference in effectively reducing stroke-related deaths and disability for the millions of people that live in, and visit, DC every year.  Congratulations to Dr. Hsia, Dr. Benson, our other volunteer champions and the entire DC AHA team for this very hard fought win.

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Science News

The EPI/Lifestyle 2015 Scientific Sessions came to Baltimore this March. Click here to see all of the updates from the conference. Some highlighted studies include:

Irregular sleeping     pattern may affect how teens eat

Semi-veggie diet     effectively lowers heart disease, stroke risk

Better midlife fitness     may slow brain aging

Friends may make the     difference in keeping children active

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Richmond twins give back.

I'd like to share an inspiring story out of Richmond, VA about twin sisters who are heart survivors and giving back in a significant way. Kimberly Ketter and Shaun Rivers lead the Caring Hearts Medical Ministry at St. Paul's Baptist Church. Each week these identical twins tend to emergencies and provide education at the church nurses' station, and they refuse sit back and allow the members of their congregation to live unhealthy lives. You have to watch the news story to hear the full story. St. Paul's is one of seventeen churches so far who are working within the American Heart Association’s Empowered to Serve megacommunity to assess their congregation's health, identify and work with individual’s at risk.

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Stroke Research Funding Announcement for North Carolina

North Carolina’s application to support the first statewide study of comprehensive post-stroke treatment has been selected for funding by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).  This grant will bring $14 million (over five years) to North Carolina to examine whether stroke survivors’ daily functioning and quality of life can be improved and family caregiver stress reduced by providing comprehensive post-acute stroke care. Congratulations to three researchers from the MAA, Dr. Pamela Duncan (Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center), Dr. Cheryl Bushnell (Wake Forest Baptist Stroke Center), and MAA Board President Dr. Wayne Rosamond (University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health) who are the lead investigators for the study. Read more at: http://blog.heart.org/new-research-to-study-benefit-of-long-term-post-stroke-care-in-north-carolina/

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Mid-Atlantic Affiliate staff gives back!

Each year we ask all staff across the country to participate in AHA’s employee giving campaign. Again this year, the MAA was the first affiliate to achieve 100% participation, and, we exceeded our financial goal. The energy and generosity shown for this campaign tells me that our staff are truly invested in our mission and proud to be a part of what we do here, and nothing could make me more thankful.

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Worksite Wellness Act of 2014 - DC

Last month the Worksite Wellness Act of 2014 went in to effect, which means residents and commuters who work on local government property across the District of Columbia will soon have heart-healthy foods and beverages available at all worksites. The DC Council has taken a bold step to ensure a healthier workforce and is providing the entire nation with a model to follow. This policy follows federal nutrition standards for vending machines, worksite cafeterias, and all food and beverages served or purchased by DC government. This workplace legislation was supported by the American Heart Association, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and local partners, and we are thrilled at the impact it will have in DC.

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Mid-Atlantic Affiliate at AHA's Scientific Sessions this week!

We had fantastic representation from the Mid-Atlantic Affiliate at AHA’s Scientific Sessions this week, including many affiliate and local board and research committee members. Nearly 20,000 attendees, more than 700 of them from the MAA, gathered in Chicago and another 1.5 million professional attendees joined virtually, absorbing groundbreaking insights, lectures from prestigious speakers and thought-provoking discussions about basic, translational, clinical and population science. Here I talk to our incoming Board Chair, David Hefner, about his experience at this year's Sessions. 

Also, MAA volunteers Dr. Eric Peterson and Dr. Monique Anderson from N.C. were even involved in saving the life of one of the attendees using CPR!

Some of the groundbreaking studies from Sessions included:

Poison control data show energy drinks and young kids don't mix,

Active asthma may significantly raise risk of heart attack,

Mentally stressed young women with heart disease more likely to have reduced blood flow to heart, and

Secondhand marijuana smoke may damage blood vessels as much as tobacco smoke.

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Today is National Eating Healthy Day!

We have a free fruits and vegetable resource guide and toolkit to help you celebrate National Eating Healthy Day all November long. It has promotional materials, handouts, recipes, and much more. You can use it in your workplace, school, community or family and help your loved ones, friends, and co-workers take steps toward healthier living. Download the materials here: http://www.heart.org/nationaleatinghealthyday and then tell us how you’re doing in social media using #AHAeathealthy.     

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Fall 2014 Update from MAA Board President

Greetings! I hope you are having a great fall. I just returned from a 6-month sabbatical in England where I was fortunate to be studying at the University of Cambridge. I hope to share with you in a future newsletter the results of the heart disease projects I started during my work there. In the meantime, there is much going on in the Mid-Atlantic Affiliate to share.

You may have heard about this month’s CDC report on mortality data that shows that the age-adjusted death rate for heart disease has dropped 1.8% and the age-adjusted death rate for stroke has dropped 2.6%. The CDC report is part of a much larger trend over the years – including a more than 30 percent decline in the death rates for heart disease, stroke and overall cardiovascular diseases from 2000 to 2012. This positive progress against cardiovascular disease is in many ways due to the work of the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association, our volunteers, donors, sponsors, partners and staff. Learn more and feel free to share this encouraging news at heart.org.

I recently attended the Mid-Atlantic Affiliate Board of Director’s meeting in Richmond where we discussed our quarter one progress and our priorities for the upcoming year. It was particularly inspiring to hear about our new “Life is Why” brand and share WHY we are personally invested in the work of the AHA. Here is a slideshow of each board member and Nancy sharing their "why." 

Next week the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association will join with other organizations across the globe to celebrate World Stroke Day on October 29. World Stroke Day was established by the World Stroke Organization in 2006 to heighten awareness of the international high risk of stroke death and disability. You can help by sharing this infographic regarding the warning signs and how to respond quickly to a stroke emergency. Additional resources and tools such as social media messaging, campaign activation ideas and more are available in the World Stroke Day Toolkit.

November 5 is National Eating Healthy Day. This year’s theme “Produce Results” urges Americans to make healthier food choices by adding a fruit or vegetable serving at every meal and snack. Here are a few tips to help you add more fruits and vegetables into your daily diet:

Different fruits and vegetables contain different nutrients. Eat a “rainbow” so your body gets as many nutrients as possible.

Enjoy fresh, frozen, canned and dried fruits and vegetables, but watch for sugary syrups and salty sauces.

Buy fruits and vegetables in season. Seasonal produce is usually the freshest, tastiest and most affordable.

The American Heart Association provides a complete toolkit of materials and how-to information for workplaces, schools, individuals and community organizations. Please encourage others to check out the National Eating Healthy Day webpage to register for the free materials and help us spread the word!

As always, let me know if there is anything I can do to help us follow the shared passion that had brought us together.

Sincerely,

Wayne D. Rosamond President, Board of Directors, Mid-Atlantic Affiliate

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Enjoyed hosting the Mid-Atlantic Affiliate Board and AHA CEO Nancy Brown in Richmond Thursday. David Hefner shared our new national brand, #lifeiswhy, and his personal story, and then he had each of us share our personal "whys"..... our reasons for caring about furthering our AHA/ASA mission and the moments we want more of in our own lives. Will share those pictures soon.  For more on Life Is Why visit www.heart.org/lifeiswhy