NIFA Partners with The Heart Truth®
USDA-NIFA is a partner with The Heart Truth®, a national awareness campaign on women’s heart health, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Designed to warn women of their #1 health threat, The Heart Truth® created and introduced the Red Dress as the national symbol for women and heart disease awareness in 2002 to deliver an urgent wakeup call to American women. The Red Dress reminds women of the need to protect their heart health, and inspires them to take action.
As the federal partner in the Cooperative Extension System (CES), NIFA supports a number of national health initiatives related to agricultural health, healthy living, health education, and health literacy. In addition, NIFA encourages collaboration with other federal agencies and private organizations to promote health and wellness and works closely with CES to support community health and wellness at the local and state levels.
Recognizing the important role of partnerships in disseminating heart health messages to American women, the NHLBI is working with NIFA and CES to help extend the reach of The Heart Truth® campaign to millions of women across the country. In particular, NIFA has agreed to the promotional support of The Heart Truth® through its communication channels and the dissemination of The Heart Truth’s messages and materials to CES for use at the state, local, or community level.
For more about The Heart Truth® Campaign visit NHLBI Web site.
The Heart Truth® materials of interest to Cooperative Extension:
- The Heart Truth for Women: A Speaker's Kit- is easy to use and supplies what is needed to hold a one-hour session on heart disease—instructions, overheads, handouts, responses to likely questions, and a compelling video, which features women telling their own stories about how heart disease changed their lives.
- The Heart Truth for Women Brochure - features women telling their own stories about heart disease and provides information about risk factors and a checklist of key questions to ask your doctor.
- The Heart Truth Fact Sheets- give essential information women need to find out their risk of heart disease and take action to reduce it. Read them for your own information, or order multiple copies to share with women in your community and workplace.
- The Heart Truth for African American Women: An Action Plan- provides The Heart Truth facts and figures specific to African American women and fact sheets for relevant programs and classes directed to individuals, families, and communities
Contact Shirley Gerrior, NIFA national program leader in the Families, 4-H, and Nutrition staff, for additional information.
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