2018 Highlights and Overview

On National Heart Valve Disease Awareness Day and throughout American Heart Month, partners, advocates, hospitals and heart centers, and other organizations across the country hosted important educational events.

• A flagship event with Inova Heart & Vascular Institute in Northern Virginia brought together over 200 patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and local and federal representatives.
• new heart valve clinic was opened in North Carolina.
• An expert and patient panel brought hundreds together to talk about valve disease.
• Students at a partner medical school interviewed their community to learn about their awareness levels.
• Partners of the campaign rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
• Additional social media and in-person events reached the general public, patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals through educational booths, formal events, hand-outs at Metro stations, and more.

This year’s campaign had exciting media exposure with high-profile op-eds in the Detroit News, BlackDoctor.org and CNN.com, and 35 letters to the editor in newspapers around the country. The combined circulation of these placements was more than 1.5 million readers.

On Valve Disease Day and throughout American Heart Month people across the country shared selfies, personal stories, educational resources, and more.

• #ValveDiseaseDay trended on February 22nd with Tweets from more than 260 contributors and a reach of more than 84 million impressions.
• A Twitter chat co-hosted with Everyday Health and the American Heart Association had a reach of more than 54 million impressions.
• ValveDiseaseDay.org had more than 10,000 visits during February.
• More than 300,000 reached on Facebook by @ValveDiseaseDay.

A television PSA on valve disease was aired more than 15,000 times by more than 8,300 stations in 70 different markets. The total audience is estimated at more than 80 million impressions. The TV PSA also ran on DirecTV and was aired for more than 1.1 million adults ages 65 and older. Additionally, the PSA ran on-line, targeting lower income older adults and had more than 1.2 million impressions.

In 2018 there were 43 national partners committed to National Heart Valve Disease Awareness Day—a 100% increase over the inaugural year in 2017. These invaluable partner organizations are committed to raising awareness in their communities and through their outreach and include patient representatives, advocacy groups, aging organizations, professional societies, hospitals and heart centers, and more.