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The Green Heart Initiative: Using Air Quality Information to Reduce Adverse Health Effects in Patients with Heart and Vascular Disease
Citation:
Cascio, W., A. Davis, AND S. Stone. The Green Heart Initiative: Using Air Quality Information to Reduce Adverse Health Effects in Patients with Heart and Vascular Disease. Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. Wolters Kluwer Health, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 28(5):401-404, (2013).
Impact/Purpose:
Millions of Americans are at higher risk from air pollution because of heart or vascular disease. These include over 15 million with coronary heart disease, 5 million with heart failure and 6.8 million with stroke.2 Despite significant national progress in reducing pollution over the past four decades, studies continue to show pollution-related adverse health impacts including premature death, hospitalization for unstable angina, myocardial infarction, heart failure and stroke among people with established cardiovascular disease.
Description:
The Green Heart Initiatives designed to raise public awareness about the role outdoor air pollution plays in cardiovascular health. Developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to complement the national Million Hearts” initiative1, Green Heart seeks to teach health care providers, patients and their families about the potential for air pollution to adversely effect people with heart or vascular disease, and to encourage patients with established disease to use EPA’s Air Quality Index (AQI) to reduce their daily air pollution exposure. This simple-to-use tool converts pollution concentrations to color-coded categories representing different levels of health concern (see Figure 1), with recommendations for actions to reduce exposure. Cardiovascular nurses have a unique opportunity to convey this important information to their patients.