Championing Health Equity
for All
for All
The American Heart Association’s 2024 Goal
The Urgent Need for Health Equity
For years we’ve been striving to ensure everyone has an optimal, just opportunity to be healthy. But this is not the reality for many people of color and others whose health suffers because of social factors beyond their control. In fact, people in some under-resourced ZIP codes have shorter life expectancies than their neighbors just a few miles away. And people in often-remote rural areas face significantly higher death rates from heart disease and stroke.
COVID-19 has illuminated these unacceptable health disparities and worsened the problems. The pandemic and economic hardships have disproportionately harmed the health of Black, Latino and Native American people. That’s why our 2024 Impact Goal affirms our focus on identifying and removing barriers to health equity.
Equitable Health for All
The Human Toll
These graphics show disproportionate death rates among people of color and people in rural areas.
Eliminating the Barriers to Health Equity
Social Determinants of Health
The conditions in which people live shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources.
Structural Racism
A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations and norms perpetuate racial inequity.
Mending Rural Health
People in rural communities get sicker and die sooner than people who live in urban or suburban areas. The AHA is determined to close this health care gap, through advocacy, education and by funding research.