At a glance
As a health care professional or clinician, you play an important role helping patients manage and control their health conditions, including hypertension. American Heart Month 2024 recognizes the importance of these efforts for women in particular.
Who should use this toolkit?
High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, and high blood pressure is steadily increasing as a contributing cause of death for U.S. women of all ages.1
By working toward a healthier life, women and their health care teams can help reduce this risk.
This toolkit is designed for health care professionals and clinicians to help support their patients, especially women, by listening to their heart.
These resources can help your clinical team implement protocols, use data to improve health outcomes, and be inspired by other practices' success stories.
A health equity lens can also help address the needs of all your patient populations and help improve cardiovascular health for all.
How do I use this toolkit?
- Identify patients with hypertension and other cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors.
- Incorporate lessons learned from success stories.
- Share messages and graphics with your care teams to help patients manage their CVD risk factors.
Clinical tools and resources
Explore various types of tools, guides, and success stories that can help you support your patients in taking small steps toward a healthier life and your health care team in implementing best practices.
Lifestyle changes
Pulse Check: Live to the Beat: Help women learn how to manage their conditions, move more, eat healthier, stress less, and work with their health care team.
"Heart-Healthy Steps" Campaign Partner Toolkit: Use these messages and tools to encourage adults 55 and older to practice heart-healthy habits that can help lower their risk for heart disease and stroke.
Recipes for a Heart-Healthy Lifestyle: Share these affordable, nutritious recipes with your patients to encourage healthy eating.
Health equity
Health Equity Indicators Toolkit: This toolkit presents health equity indicators (HEIs) across eight focus areas, or health equity themes, that influence inequities in CVD prevention, care, and management as outlined in the HEI Conceptual Framework for cardiovascular disease.
Focusing on Health Equity: Learn how Million Hearts® aims to advance health equity through policies and practices that provide access to resources and enable cardiovascular health for all.
Community-Clinical Linkages Health Equity Guide: Practitioners can use this guide to make community-clinical linkages (CCLs) more equitable. CCLs are an effective approach to preventing and managing chronic diseases such as CVD.
Grady Implementation Guide: This implementation guide for public health practitioners and health care professionals is based on the Grady Heart Failure Program. The guide provides a detailed description of an effective intervention to address health disparities among heart failure patients.
Self-measured blood pressure monitoring (SMBP)
Self-Measured Blood Pressure Monitoring: Explore tools and action guides on this web page to help you implement SMBP monitoring in your clinic and engage patients in monitoring their own blood pressure.
Success Story: Wisconsin Team Leverages SMBP Monitoring to Improve Outcomes: Read this success story about how ThedaCare health care system became a Hypertension Control Champion.
Success Story: Using Home Blood Pressure Monitoring for Hypertension Control Success: Read this success story about how Hunterdon Cardiovascular Associates became a Hypertension Control Champion.
Medication adherence
Pharmacists' Patient Care Process Approach Guide: This implementation guide provides key examples for public health practitioners and health care professionals to help engage pharmacists in hypertension management through the Pharmacists' Patient Care Process. The guide shares lessons learned from the Michigan Medicine Hypertension Pharmacists' Program.
Improving Medication Adherence Among Patients with Hypertension: Use this web content to help you and your team learn about and overcome barriers to medication adherence.
Success Story: Two Coordinated Health Care Teams Improve Medication Adherence: Read this success story about how health care systems in Orlando and San Diego became Hypertension Control Champions.
Success Story: Large Health System Implements Medication Adherence Practices: Watch a video about how Kaiser Permanente in Denver became a Hypertension Control Champion.
Standardizing and improving patient care
Million Hearts® Hypertension Control Change Package, Second Edition: Implement this list of process improvements as your team seeks optimal hypertension control among your patient population.
Success Story: Using Practice Facilitation to Improve Care Delivery: Read this success story about how an initiative made the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene a Hypertension Control Champion.
Success Story: Leveraging Information Technology to Empower Patients: Read this success story about how Reliant Medical Group became a Hypertension Control Champion.
Identifying patients with hypertension
Blood Pressure Control: Read about Million Hearts® and its priority to optimize care, starting with supporting blood pressure control. This content includes tools and resources for clinicians, public health practitioners, and patients.
Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy: Learn about the different types of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and share Million Hearts® tools and resources about preventing and treating them.
Spread the word
Share the following social media messages with your followers. Don't forget to tag @CDCHeart_Stroke in your posts and follow DHDSP and Million Hearts® on social media.
- 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
- 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
- Only about 1 in 4 adults with #hypertension have their condition under control. The Million Hearts [tag] Hypertension Control Change Package can help improve patient #BloodPressure control with practice- and evidence-based resources. #HeartMonth https://bit.ly/2Net7xY
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- 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
- 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
- Only about 1 in 4 adults with #hypertension have their condition under control. The @MillionHeartsUS Hypertension Control Change Package can help improve patient #BloodPressure control with practice- and evidence-based resources. #HeartMonth https://bit.ly/2Net7xY
- Vaughan AS, Coronado F, Casper M, Loustalot F, Wright JS. County-level trends in hypertension-related cardiovascular disease mortality—United States, 2000 to 2019. J Am Heart Assoc. 2022;11(7):e024785.