Heart :: Heart Insight for heart patients, families and caregivers

The American Heart Association and Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, part of Wolters Kluwer Health, announce the launch of a new consumer magazine, Heart Insight, for heart patients, their families and caregivers.

The first AHA consumer magazine that focuses exclusively on managing and preventing cardiovascular disease and related conditions, such as stroke and obesity, Heart Insight will provide readers with the most up-to-date, authoritative and practical advice.

“Heart Insight may look like other health and nutrition magazines, but it has something the others don’t have and that is the full resources and credibility of the American Heart Association,” said Patrick O’Gara, M.D., F.A.H.A., the magazine’s Editorial Board Chair, who is Director of Clinical Cardiology at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Heart Insight will be published four times a year, with the first issue available later this month. Copies will be distributed free of charge to 10,000 cardiologists’ offices and other healthcare providers who are involved in patient care. Each doctor’s office will receive 50 copies of each issue.

Patients will also be able to order their own free subscriptions to the magazine for home delivery, either by filling out a subscription card or by visiting http://www.heartinsight.com/. Several thousand patients have already signed up for individual subscriptions even before the first issue was published, after a pilot issue was distributed at the American Heart Association’s annual Scientific Sessions meeting in November 2006.

“Providing accurate and timely information to help reduce death and disability from cardiovascular disease and stroke is essential to our mission,” said the association’s president, Raymond Gibbons, M.D., F.A.C.C. “Heart Insight will supplement our existing patient education programs and Web sites to deliver reliable health and lifestyle information directly to the people who need it most — patients, families and caregivers affected by these diseases.”

“Heart Insight is very close to my heart because of my own family history of high blood pressure and high cholesterol,” said Ruth Papazian, the magazine’s editor. “I’ve also dealt with the effects of these conditions, having been a caregiver to help a parent recover from a stroke.”

“Heart Insight will offer practical advice on managing or avoiding heart disease, along with realistic goals against which to measure progress,” she added. “We’re hoping readers will find Heart Insight appealing and engaging. The writing is lively, the tone is upbeat and the design is as attractive and glossy as any consumer health magazine on the newsstand.”

Heart Insight is being published in partnership with Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, which also publishes the American Heart Association’s six scientific journals: Circulation; Circulation Research; Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology; Hypertension; and Stroke.

Perhaps most important, Heart Insight will give patients hope, inspiration and encouragement by featuring articles about, and by, people who have first-hand experience dealing with cardiovascular conditions, either as patients or caregivers.


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