Cardiovascular disease is not only the leading cause of death in America, but also exacerbates historic and systemic inequities in the American health system, said policymakers and experts during an event hosted by Novartis and CQ Roll Call yesterday for American Heart Month.
The scale of the problem: “Heart disease costs our healthcare system $216 billion dollars annually, and results in $147 billion worth of lost productivity each year,” said U.S. Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) during the event. “These statistics are alarming and only worsened as the COVID 19 pandemic upended our day to day lives.”
“It's just a perfect storm honestly here in rural America,”said U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon, MD (R-IN), a cardiothoracic surgeon. “It doesn't take a $1,000 bill from a hospital to prevent someone from seeking care. People who have even $25 or $30 copays can't afford to go see a physician.”
Challenges are similar in urban communities: “People are afraid to go outside to exercise because it is dangerous. Some people can't afford healthy food, and there is no healthy food to buy within five zip codes anyway,” said Jefferson College of Population Health’s Dr. David Nash, explaining challenges in parts of Philadelphia.
“Oftentimes, in my community, school is the only place students are getting a balanced meal,” noted Georgia State Rep. Billy Mitchell. “In the urban communities, 48% of African American adults suffer from some stage of diabetes, and this is a malady that needs to be addressed.”
“You can’t snap your fingers and give them a new drug and say okay, we beat cardiovascular disease,”Dr. Nash continued. “We need a community-level partnership, education, and boots-on-the-ground community health workers.”
“The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has made it one of their top priorities to use disenfranchised population focus models,” said former CMS Administrator Dr. Mark McClellan. The goal is “getting everyone in Medicare and Medicaid into a care system—one that's not just about visits, but one that entices, aides, and helps them address their needs, and also removes the fee-for-service payment model.”
Companies like Novartis are working both nationally and internationally on campaigns to address heart health: “We've worked with the city of Milan, as well as Ulan Bator in Mongolia, Accra in Ghana, and Sao Paulo in Brazil,” said Novartis CEO Dr. Vas Narasimhan, “all with the goal of taking a population health-based screening approach to really tackle hypertension.”
Read more: To improve cardiovascular disease outcomes, connection with community is everything
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