NHLBI's The Heart Truth^® 2021-2022 Community Subcontract Program

Through The Heart Truth^® Community Subcontract Program, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute is providing funding to tribal organizations and programs to implement and assess Honoring the Gift of Heart Health, a health educator’s curriculum for American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

   
American Indian and Alaska Native communities have used Honoring the Gift of Heart Health since 2006. Community and tribal organizations will assess and implement the current Honoring the Gift of Heart Health materials, messaging, and resources. Feedback from these activities will guide The Heart Truth in updating the curricula and supporting materials to ensure they are relevant and meet the current heart health needs of these communities. 

We are pleased to announce the selection of the following organizations to receive funding for the 2021-2022 program year:

The Kewa Health Outreach Program (KHOP) conducted an assessment in 2018, which revealed that community members were not only worried about diabetes in their community but wanted culturally relevant interventions to prevent heart disease and strokes. The assessment provided key insights into the felt needs of the community, which align with the data and the devastating statistics Native American population face every day. There is a distinct need for a cardiovascular disease health education program in the community. KHOP will leverage the organization’s current work and build the capacity of health educators to implement and assess the Honoring the Gift of Heart Health curriculum.

Partnering with American Indian communities, the Center for American Indian Health Research (CAIHR) at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) has a long and rich history of implementing heart disease and diabetes education programs for four decades. CAIHR has hosted the Strong Heart Study (SHS) Coordinating Center and SHS Oklahoma Field Center for over three decades. The OUHSC CAIHR team understands that heart health education will increase cardiovascular health awareness, and then affect positive change in unhealthy behaviors. The team will draw on its extensive research experience to implement and assess the Honoring the Gift of Heart Health curriculum.