Heart Charity Announces UK-Wide Drive To Reduce Heart Disease 'Postcode Lottery'

Main Category: Heart Disease
Also Included In: Cardiovascular / Cardiology
Article Date: 11 Aug 2009 - 7:00 PST

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The British Heart Foundation (BHF) today revealed the sites for an innovative £9 million UK-wide drive to reduce the country's heart health 'postcode lottery', working alongside the NHS and local authorities for the first time.

At present, people living in one postcode can be five times as likely to die from coronary heart disease than those living in a postcode just half a mile away.(1)

The Hearty Lives programme will trial a range of innovative approaches to tackling heart disease in areas of deprivation, working with communities most at risk. The larger £1.5 million programmes will take place in Hull, Torfaen, Newham and Dundee, and smaller ones will also take place in Ayrshire and Arran, Fife, Bristol, Birmingham, Cookstown, Fenland, Bolsover, Hastings, Blaenau Gwent and Rochdale.

Programmes will include health coaches for patients in a former mining town, risk assessments for travellers and communities at risk of heart disease, helping people with mental illnesses to access heart health services, and a smoke-free homes project to prevent teenagers from taking up smoking.

BHF Associate Medical Director Dr Mike Knapton said: "Your postcode should be a harmless indicator of where you live, not your odds of an early death from heart disease. "We want people to have the choice to live and enjoy better lives - to play with their kids in the back yard, or to live long enough to make the most of their retirement."

This is the first time that the British Heart Foundation has worked in partnership with local NHS services and local authorities to tackle geographical inequalities in heart disease.

The programmes will also look at helping to improve children's access to nutrition through children's centres in deprived areas, training people in deprived areas in emergency life support, and specialist psychological support for heart patients with high levels of anxiety and depression. Community groups and other third sector organisations will also contribute to the programmes, which will run over the course of the next three years.

(1) BHF Health Promotion Research Group, University of Oxford, 2007

Source
The British Heart Foundation

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