| By Gale Staff |
February is all about the heart—and no, we’re not just talking about the heart-shaped decor for Valentine’s Day. It’s American Heart Month, and your library’s subscription to Gale Health and Wellness is loaded with valuable information about heart disease and heart health.
Heart disease (also called cardiovascular disease, or CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 650,000 lives each year. Many of these cases are preventable. While genetic factors largely determine heart health, other significant factors include personal habits, such as excessive drinking, smoking, and low physical activity. By sharing the information housed within our dedicated topic page and hosting themed activities like community walks and art therapy, your library can help create a more heart-healthy community.
Understand the Disease
Despite being the leading cause of death in the United States for a century, many remain in the dark about the pervasiveness of heart disease. According to the American Heart Association, this lack of knowledge is “potentially deadly.” With this in mind, use Gale Health and Wellness to help define the scope of the disease through clear, memorable facts.
What Is Heart Disease?
The term heart disease describes several possible conditions affecting the heart itself or the vascular system. Heart disease commonly refers to coronary artery disease (CAD), in which the arteries supplying blood (which contains oxygen and vital nutrients) to the heart are blocked. This can lead to a heart attack.
What Causes Heart Disease?
People can be born with cardiovascular issues or develop them later in life. Atherosclerosis, or plaque build-up in the arteries, is the number one cause of heart disease.
What Are the Symptoms?
Chest pain, called angina, and shortness of breath are the most common symptoms of heart disease. Some heart attacks are “silent,” meaning they present with few symptoms. Silent heart attacks are just as dangerous for the heart muscle, but the person is often unaware that the incident occurred.
Whether you share these facts through a library display, hand-outs, or social media, you should be confident that the information is accurate. With Gale Health and Wellness, you can trust that the content is current and reliable. If your patrons want to dig deeper, they can navigate peer-reviewed studies from top medical journals, vetted magazine articles, and concise summary pages.
Highlight Prevention
While there’s nothing we can do to change our age or family history, Gale Health and Wellness contains helpful and attainable steps to help mitigate the risk of heart disease. Prevention is often the easiest and most effective treatment.
Aerobic Exercise
Exercise is one of the most important strategies in the fight against heart disease. Regular exercise facilitates blood circulation and helps maintain healthy levels of blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar. Aerobic exercise is particularly important for a healthy heart, and adults should aim for at least 150 minutes each week.
Help get patrons moving by coordinating a fun, low-impact fitness program through your library. The public library in Waterbury, Vermont, hosted workout classes for its community members inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s famous exercise regimen. Participants needed no prior experience and even brought canned goods to use as dumbbells (canned items were then donated to a local food pantry).
Smoking Cessation
Most Americans know that smoking is bad for their lungs, but it’s risky for heart health, too. When people smoke, their arteries narrow, reducing the oxygen that reaches the body’s vital organs. Smoking also increases the danger of blood clotting. Libraries can serve as valuable anti-smoking hubs in their communities by sharing relevant information on the risks and guidance on smoking cessation.
Weight Management
Obesity can contribute to high blood pressure or diabetes, conditions that increase the risk of developing heart disease. Overweight adults should talk to their doctors about a healthy strategy for weight management, which may include changes to their diet, exercise regimen, or medications.
Encourage patrons to calculate their body mass index (BMI), perhaps by including a link to a BMI calculator in your February e-newsletter or other outreach materials. This metric is an important indicator of overall health, and adults should aim for a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. It’s important to note that BMI is just one data point about an individual’s overall health, and librarians should always encourage patrons with BMI or related weight concerns to speak with their doctor.
Stress Reduction
Elevated stress levels lead to increased blood pressure, which damages arteries over time. Americans are stressed for various reasons: finances, relationships, job security, politics—the list goes on. Gale Health and Wellness offers topic pages on stress and stress management, and your library can host programming for patrons craving a break from the daily grind. Meditation workshops and art classes can be especially effective.
Prevention efforts are most successful when they can be easily integrated into daily life. As you decide how to highlight these proactive, heart-healthy steps, be sure to introduce them through achievable and fun strategies—and always remind community members to speak with their healthcare provider before making any major lifestyle changes.
Develop Accessible and Diverse Outreach
Heart disease disproportionately affects certain populations more than others. According to an article from the University of Chicago Medicine, African Americans are “30% more likely to die from heart disease than white Americans,” and older Americans (over 50 years of age, regardless of race) are at higher risk in general.
To meet the needs of your diverse community, you can rely on Gale Health and Wellness to help customize your materials and outreach initiatives. Through images, podcasts, and other delivery methods, the database provides a rich collection of resources, making information more accessible to a wide range of individuals with different learning styles.
In addition to a diversity of content and formats, you and your patrons can customize Gale resources according to individual needs. Users can access dozens of translations, text-to-speech audio options, and adjustable display tools, making personal health information more attainable than ever.
Beyond our user-friendly topic pages and extensive collections, Gale Health and Wellness provides subscribers with supplemental features to kickstart your planning for American Heart Month. Access guided activities like the Heart Health Month Five-Day Challenge or the Heart Health Month Personal Inventory. By engaging community members to think about their personal health, you can encourage them to initiate important changes to their lifestyles and hopefully reduce their risk of heart disease.
If your library isn’t a Gale Health and Wellness subscriber, learn more about our products and contact your local representative.