Advancing Access and Heart Health: A Decade of Community Impact

At the AstraZeneca Foundation we’re working to advance health equity and foster community wellbeing and have proudly carried out this mission through our signature Connections for Cardiovascular Health^SM (CCH) and CCH Next Generation programs for more than a decade. We created CCH in 2010 and CCH Next Generation in 2020 with a clear goal: to improve cardiovascular health in the US. Since 2010, we’ve granted more than $25 million to support nonprofit programs that use tailored, culturally responsive approaches to help meet the needs of their local communities.

It’s been remarkable to witness our Grant Awardees’ impact on the health of their communities. Beyond providing funding, we have worked closely with these organizations to implement measurement and evaluation processes along with strategies to ensure effective communication and support program sustainability. After a successful pilot program, in 2020, we introduced our Mentorship Program to support Grant Awardees’ capacity building efforts and have a forum for them to exchange best practices and lessons learned.

Since the launch of CCH, our Grant Awardees have reached more than 1.7 million people and have tracked more than 70,000 participants’ progress toward improved heart health measures. They have received health screenings, cardiovascular disease prevention and management support, nutrition education, behavioral health services, health coaching and more. Through many of these programs, we’ve increased access to quality healthcare and influenced lifestyle changes to help participants in their journey to lower their risk for cardiovascular disease.

In this final year of the CCH Next Generation program, the AstraZeneca Foundation will grant $750,000 to six US-based nonprofits:

• Camino Health Center [Camino Community Development Corp.] in Charlotte, North Carolina; $125,000: “Camino Vida” aims to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in individuals living with chronic disease, including hypertension, type-2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, through individualized, culturally sensitive healthy eating and physical activity plans offered by health professionals in a trusted community setting.
  
  
• Central Oklahoma American Indian Health Council, Inc. dba Oklahoma City Indian Clinic (OKCIC) in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; $125,000: “Healthy Hearts on the Go: Linking Cardiovascular Disease to Diabetes Management for American Indians” aims to increase engagement in the central Oklahoma American Indian community through innovative, youth-led cardiovascular disease awareness strategies that improve the quality of cardiovascular disease care. The program includes community-based and telehealth interventions that address lifestyle behaviors such as nutrition and physical activity; increase access to cardiovascular disease interventions; and improve clinical cardiovascular disease measures.
  
  
• Charitable Pharmacy of Central Ohio in Columbus, Ohio; $125,000: “Farmacy in the City: Cardiovascular Care at a co-located Charitable Pharmacy and Fresh Market” is working to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality risk by helping reduce body weight and blood pressure and optimizing medication in underserved patients with existing cardiovascular disease, obesity or hypertension. The program pairs healthy, fresh produce with pharmacy care and follow up through a partnership with the Charitable Pharmacy of Central Ohio and a fresh food market.
  
  
• Good News Clinics Inc. in Gainesville, Georgia; $125,000: “Healthy Hearts 4 Life” aims to screen and identify patients with cardiovascular disease as well as patients with risk factors and health behaviors that have a negative impact on cardiovascular health and provide medical treatments and behavioral counseling to help patients make lifestyle changes that lead to improved health outcomes.
  
  
• HealthVisions Midwest in Hammond, Indiana; $125,000: “Healthy Eating Active Living Reduce Stress Test Your Numbers PROGRAM” works to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease of low-income, underserved communities through a comprehensive wellness program of healthy eating, physical activity, disease self-management skills, medical services and personalized care planning. The program addresses barriers to increase physical activity and consumption of healthy foods, as well as improve self-management skills, health literacy and clinical outcomes.
  
  
• The Wellness Coalition in Montgomery, Alabama; $125,000: “HeartLink – Improving Cardiovascular Health in the Alabama River Region” works to address the cardiovascular health and health behavior needs of uninsured and underinsured adults in Alabama’s River Region. The program also works to increase participant knowledge of self-management techniques through access to primary care, health insurance, free/low-cost medications and community resources and self-management of cardiovascular disease, delivered by trained wellness navigators providing wellness case management and chronic disease self-management education.

What’s also very exciting is what comes next! Building on the successes and lessons learned from CCH and CCH Next Generation, we’re developing a new, signature Foundation grant program with the goal of helping improve the health and wellbeing of even more people, particularly amongst historically excluded and disenfranchised populations. As we finalize the details of this new program for a 2023 launch, we look forward to continuing our work in partnership with nonprofits to advance health equity within our local communities. Stay tuned for more!