American Heart Association Public Policy Agenda

Introduction

The American heart Association is aimed at having support for its mission as well as strategic policies. It seeks to do this by having a public policy agenda that would provide guidance and direction on policy issues. This is provided to the advocacy staff that is in state federal and local levels. The American heart Association on an annually basis seeks to utilize arising opportunities that would enable it to achieve its mission. This usually has a relation with health impact on citizens. It does this by having scans of the political landscape to seek for such opportunities as it has state and federal priorities. The association has research on heart disease and stroke as its policy agenda. Lloyd (2009).


Funding

In order to be able to achieve its mission, there needs to be a boost in financial support to the National Institutes of Health. This is attributed to the fact that the institute is the leading medical research agency in the country with various institutes and centers. The agency seeks to find causes, treatments and cures for most of the common and rare ailments. It does this by conducting and providing support to the fundamental translational and clinical medical research. For the organization to be able to minimize deaths from cardiovascular disease, it requires more funding. This is essential as medical research that is conducted by the organization requires substantial amounts of finances.


Another institute that is linked to the American Heart Association is the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The institute is aimed at supporting research that is related to various ailments. Such ailments include blood, lung, and heart diseases. For the institute to be able to determine the causes, treatment and prevention of such diseases it requires huge amounts of funds. The institute would also require sufficient funds for its campaigns on areas such as women and heart diseases.


The American Heart Association also has National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke as one of its institutes. The institute also requires funds as it is the number one funder of research that is associated with brain and nervous system. For the institute to be able to minimize situations of neurological disease it requires to conduct research. Such research amounts to spending of a lot of money due to its complexity. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The institute conducts clinical research on most of the usual diseases that severely affect American citizens. Its research is based on metabolic diseases such as diabetes as well as digestive, hematologic and nutrition diseases. This as well calls for a raise in the sum of funding to be able to come up with better preventive and treatment measures.


Conclusion

Through the National Institute of Health, research has been conducted that has brought a revolution in patient care. The institute has been able to discover new methods of treating as well as preventing stroke and heart disease. It also has its focus on promoting cardiovascular health to all citizens in America. This would lead to individuals having longer and healthier lives and hence increase life expectancy. By conducting such research the institute has and would be able to further reduce the cost of healthcare. The fundamental principle of the institute is to conduct more up to date research on these ailments. To be in a position to do this, it is evident that more funding is required.


Reference:

Lloyd Jones (2009) Heart disease and stroke statistics—2010 update: a report from the American Heart Association.