American Heart Month Toolkits 2024

At a glance

February is American Heart Month, a time when all people—especially women—are encouraged to focus on their cardiovascular health.

Collage of six different women. My heart, my voice. Listen to your heart. Raise your voice. Protect your health.

Overview

This Heart Month, the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP) is encouraging women to listen to their hearts and speak up for their health. Women in the United States are experiencing unacceptable and avoidable heart-related illness and death, and nearly half of US women do not recognize that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women.1

DHDSP aims to shed light on this important topic so that women no longer experience delayed recognition, diagnosis, and treatment for cardiac events, such as heart attacks.2

Heart-health disparities specific to women widen and deepen when combined with race, ethnicity, and other social factors.3 We encourage individuals, health care and public health professionals, and our partners to help close the disparities gap.

Using this website's tools, help the women in your life listen to their hearts and raise their voices. When we encourage women to protect their own hearts, they can help others in their communities protect theirs.

Tools and resources

For Health Care Professionals: Explore change packages, best practices guides, and other tools to help your team support patients with hypertension.

For Public Health Professionals: Share evidence-based data, journal articles, and messages to boost knowledge about hypertension in your state or local community.

For Individuals and Patients: Use these plain language materials, quizzes, videos, and graphics to help people learn more about how to control their blood pressure.

Quick links

Connect with us

Spread the word

Share these graphics and social messages with your followers for American Heart Month. Don't forget to tag @CDCHeart_Stroke in your posts and follow us on social media.

Social cards

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Collage of six different women. My heart, my voice. Listen to your heart. Raise your voice. Protect your health.
Listen to your heart. Raise your voice. Protect your health.
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Collage of four different smiling women. My heart, my voice. Listen to your heart. Raise your voice. Protect your health.
My heart, my voice.
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Collage of three different women working in a health care setting. Listen to women's voices, protect women's hearts.
Listen to women's voices. Protect women's hearts.
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Collage of four different women in health care settings. Listen to women's voices, protect women's health.
Visit CDC.gov/MyHeartMyVoice

Facebook/LinkedIn

  • Women often experience delayed recognition, diagnosis, and treatment for heart attacks. They deserve to be heard—especially when it comes to their hearts. Commit to defending your patients' heart health this American Heart Month. Empower women to raise their voices. #HeartMonth https://bit.ly/3OAuNCy
  • Listen to your heart. Raise your voice. Protect your health. Women are often subject to delayed recognition, diagnosis, and treatment for heart attacks. Use this toolkit to spread the word: it's time to get loud to protect our hearts. #HeartMonth https://bit.ly/3ugjicP
  • Not all women are equally impacted by cardiovascular disease: Black women are nearly 60% more likely to have high blood pressure than White women. This American Heart Month, commit to increasing awareness of barriers to equitable health care. https://bit.ly/4bvEgF6

X (Twitter)

  • Listen to your heart. Raise your voice. Protect your health. Women are often subject to delayed recognition, diagnosis, and treatment for heart attacks. Use this toolkit to spread the word: it's time to get loud to protect our hearts. #HeartMonth https://bit.ly/3SNmFRP
  • High blood pressure accounts for 1 in 5 deaths among women in the U.S. and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Be proactive about heart health and learn about the risk factors for high blood pressure. https://bit.ly/4brWEi6
  • Listen to your heart. Raise your voice. Protect your health. High blood pressure during and after pregnancy is a leading cause of maternal illness and death. Learn the warning signs and talk to a doctor if something isn't feeling right. https://bit.ly/4bq1VXz
  • Health equity is more than an ideal—it's a requirement for a truly heart-healthy community. Disparities in heart health deepen based on gender, especially when coupled with race, ethnicity, and other social factors. Make health equity a primary focus in your practice. https://bit.ly/4boUvDT
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Content Source:
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion; About the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention
  1. Mosca L, Hammond G, Mochari-Greenberger H, Towfighi A, Albert MA, American Heart Association Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke in Women and Special Populations Committee of the Council on Clinical Cardiology, Council on Epidemiology and Prevention, Council on Cardiovascular Nursing, Council on High Blood Pressure Research, and Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism. Fifteen-year trends in awareness of heart disease in women: results of a 2012 American Heart Association national survey. Circulation. 2013;127(11):1254–1263, e1–29.
  2. Wenger NK, Lloyd-Jones DM, Elkind MSV, et al. Call to action for cardiovascular disease in women: epidemiology, awareness, access, and delivery of equitable health care: a presidential advisory from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2022;145(23):e1059–e1071.
  3. Bey GS, Jesdale B, Forrester S, Person SD, Kiefe C. Intersectional effects of racial and gender discrimination on cardiovascular health vary among black and white women and men in the CARDIA study. SSM - Population Health. 2019;8:100446.