Translating Evidence Into Practice: A Decade of Efforts by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association to Reduce Death and Disability Due to Stroke

Abstract

The American Heart Association’s (AHA) stated mission is “to build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke.” Consistent with that mission, the AHA set a strategic direction in 1998 to provide information and offer solutions for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and stroke in people of all ages, with special emphasis on those at high risk. The identified goal was to reduce coronary heart disease, stroke, and risk by 25% by 2010, as measured by 4 key indicators: A reduction by 25% in deaths due to coronary heart disease and stroke, prevalence of smoking, hypercholesterolemia, physical inactivity, and uncontrolled hypertension, along with a zero growth rate of overweight or diabetic individuals in the US population. To help achieve these goals as they related to stroke and to exemplify the organization’s commitment to stroke, the AHA formed the American Stroke Association (ASA) in 1998. This article documents the milestones encountered in this decade-long journey from 1998 to the present and attempts to capture the critical success factors that enabled the ASA to play such a prominent leadership role in the fight against stroke. Although many other organizations were working alongside the ASA to accomplish these goals and made essential contributions in their own right, the purpose of the present report is to trace the path pursued by the ASA (or the AHA through its support of the ASA) and review in this context its central role as the lead organizer, the convener of experts, the cited source of stroke facts and statistics, and the organization that defined the common language for translating the available stroke evidence into real-world practice. The present report is organized according to 4 basic domains of translating evidence into practice: (1) generating basic science knowledge, (2) disseminating scientific findings, (3) convening experts for consensus, …