Excellence and Notable Achievement Awards From the World Hypertension League: A Call for 2015 Nominations

Abstract

World Hypertension League Recipients of Inaugural Excellence Awards – 2014 Excellence in Dietary Salt Reduction at the Population Level: Professor Derek Denton University of Melbourne, Australia Professor Graham MacGregor, MA, MB Queen Mary University of London, UK Excellence in Hypertension Control at the Population Level: Dr. Kikuo Arakawa, MD Former President – Japan Association of Hypertension, Japan I am very pleased to accept this honour, but I would stress it is very much on behalf of the fantastic team who work with me, both in the UK and on our World Action on Salt & Health. I am very pleased that after a lot of effort and hard work we have managed to continue to reduce salt intake in the UK and provided a model that many other countries can use to reduce their own salt intake. We now need to redouble our efforts to make sure that every country in the world is involved and is reducing their salt intake. The greater the amount of support from members of the WHL and people with an interest in blood pressure, the better, as reducing our salt intake is the most cost-effective public health policy that we know. (He FJ, Pombo-Rodrigues S, MacGregor GA. Salt reduction in England from 2003 to 2011: its relationship to blood pressure, stroke and ischaemic heart disease mortality. BMJ Open. 2014;4:e004549. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004549). Candidates for the 2015 Excellence Awards will be identified and selected by an internal WHL committee, while notable achievement awardees are nominated by peers, colleagues, hypertension experts, and WHL partners. For 2015, a third notable achievement award category has been added, namely: “Rising Star in the Promotion of Public Health for Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Hypertension Control” that is intended for an up-and-coming young professional who has made great strides in and contributions to this field. The 2015 awardees will be featured on the WHL Web site and in the WHL newsletter. In order to nominate an individual or group that you feel is eligible for one of the three notable achievement awards, there are certain criteria the individual or group must meet and certain steps the nominators must take. These may be downloaded from the WHL Web site at: Professor Graham MacGregor, MA, MB Recipients of the WHL Award for Notable Achievement in Hypertension Control at the Population Level – 2014 Professor Ibtisam Ahmed Ali, FRCP, MD – Khartoum, Sudan Dr Brian Rayner, MBChB, MMeD, PhD – Cape Town, South Africa Dr Dragan Lović, MD,PhD, FESC – Niska Banja, Serbia Ms Crystelle Fogle, RD, MS, MBA – Shepherd, MT, USA Yaroslavl Hypertension Improvement Partnership Project On behalf of Drs Maria Mozheyko, Sergei Eregin, Sergey Vundervald, and Natalia Danilenko Yaroslavl, Russia & Basel, Switzerland Recipients of the WHL Award for Notable Achievement in Dietary Salt Reduction at the Population Level – 2014 Dr Rajan Ravichandran, MBBS, MD – Chennai, India Dr Krystyna Knypl, MD – Warsaw, Poland Dr Branka Legetic, MD, MSc, PhD – Washington, DC, USA Ms Adriana Blanco-Metzler, MS – Tres Ríos, Cartago, Costa Rica Mr Hubert P.J. Linders – Santiago – Centro, Chile Professor Chen Chunming – Beijing, China Dr Mary Anne Land, MPH, PhD – Camperdown, NSW, Australia Dr Mary R. L'Abbe, PhD – Toronto, Ontario, Canada Dr M. Kaye Kramer, DrPH, MPH, RN, CCRC – Pittsburgh, PA, USA Dr JoAnne Arcand, PhD, RD – Toronto, Ontario, Canada Professor Krisela Steyn, MSc, NED, MD – Cape Town, South Africa Heart Foundation of New Zealand – Christchurch, New Zealand To nominate someone for one of the three categories, please submit a signed letter(s) from two nominators detailing the contribution made by the individual or organization to high blood pressure prevention or control or dietary salt reduction or as a “Rising Star.” Those who receive an award will have a significant track record of activity and demonstrable impact on prevention, treatment, and control of hypertension at a population level or will have made a notable contribution to dietary salt reduction at a population level or are a young professional making significant impact on cardiovascular disease/hypertension. In addition to the nomination letter, accompanying documents substantiating the nomination can be included where appropriate (curriculum vitae, organizational charter, publication, project funding proposal, and newspaper articles or media reports). It is critical that the nomination also include primary nominee information (name, corresponding individual if the nominee is an organization, mailing address, e-mail address, and phone number) and primary and secondary nominator information (name, corresponding individual, mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone number). The award does have some exclusions. Interventions at an institutional level are not ordinarily eligible unless they are likely to impact a broader population or a very large number of people. With the excellence awards, each individual or organization can only receive the award once, but, with the notable achievement awards, individuals and organizations may receive the award more than once provided there are separate achievements of note. No current member of the board, or executive, or awards committee of the WHL, or interventions or organizations they lead are eligible. Also, individuals involved in producing, promoting, or marketing tobacco products or salt for consumption (outside of the recommended dietary salt intake promoted by the World Health Organization or the potential nominees' regional government) are not eligible for award. Incomplete nominations will not be considered and an individual may be nominated for only one category. Please send nominations by February 15, 2015, in order to have your nomination considered! Please feel free to share this announcement with colleagues. The WHL is incredibly excited over the past and future awardees as a mechanism to promote and enhance the prevention and control of hypertension globally and your active involvement in this mutual effort. If you feel that someone you know is truly deserving of a WHL Notable Achievement Award, please send the necessary materials to: