American Heart Association and Sharecare to Host Twitter Chat on Heart Health
#HeartChat scheduled for Thursday, February 20 at 12pm ET
ATLANTA, February 18, 2014 – In support of the 50th anniversary of American Heart Month, the American Heart Association (AHA) and Sharecare, the online health and wellness engagement platform founded by Dr. Mehmet Oz and Jeff Arnold, together are proud to host a Twitter chat to answer users’ questions about heart health. As the number one and number four respective causes of death in the U.S., heart disease and stroke claim more lives than all forms of cancer combined.
“On average, every 40 seconds, an American dies of cardiovascular disease or has a stroke making them the leading causes of death and disability in the United States,” said Dr. Mariell Jessup, president of the American Heart Association. “Educating people about how they can reduce their risk is literally a matter of life and death, and our #HeartChat with Sharecare has the potential to help millions of people get the information they need to fight heart disease and stroke.”
Scheduled for Thursday, February 20, from 12 pm to 3 pm EST, the Twitter chat will focus on living with heart disease and stroke; learning how to live healthy and reduce your risks; and the new heart disease and stroke prevention guidelines released last November. During #HeartChat, Dr. Jessup, also Medical Director of the Heart and Vascular Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, will be joined by the following experts from the AHA and the American Stroke Association (ASA) to answer users’ questions:
- Dr. Clyde Yancy, AHA past president and Magerstadt Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Cardiology at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine
- Dr. Rachel Johnson, AHA Nutrition Committee chair and Robert L. Bickford, Jr. Green and Gold Professor of Nutrition and Professor of Medicine at the University of Vermont
- Dr. Demetrius Lopes, national ASA spokesperson and Director of Neuroendovascular Surgery at Rush Hospital, Chicago
- Dr. Mary Ann Bauman, national AHA spokesperson and Medical Director for Women's Health Community Relations at INTEGRIS Health, Inc., Oklahoma City
Cardiologists from select Sharecare hospital partners also will take part in Thursday’s chat, including AHA past president Dr. Gordon Tomaselli from Johns Hopkins Medicine; Dr. Tamara Horwich from UCLA Health; and Dr. Michael Emery from Greenville Health System. Additionally, members of Sharecare’s Advisory Board will lend their expertise during the three-hour #HeartChat, including:
- Dr. Randy P. Martin, Chief of the Structural and Valvular Center of Excellence at the Piedmont Heart Institute in Atlanta, and Physician Principal Advisor of Educational Programs at the Marcus Heart Valve Center: @DrRandyMartin1
- Barbara Ficarra, RN, health educator and founder of Healthin30.com: @barbaraficarra
- Patricia Geraghty, RN, nurse practitioner and Adjunct Clinical Faculty at Holy Names University in Oakland, Calif. @PattyGeraghty
- Dr. Robin Miller, medical director at Triune Integrative Medicine in Medford, Ore.: @RMillerMD
To participate in the chat, users can post questions on Twitter with the hashtag #HeartChat starting on Wednesday, February 19; and follow the chat live on the event’s Twitter page.
About the American Heart Association
The American Heart Association is devoted to saving people from heart disease and stroke – America’s No. 1 and No. 4 killers. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies, and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat these diseases. The Dallas-based association is the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-800-AHA-USA1, visit heart.org or call any of our offices around the country. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
About Sharecare
Sharecare is a health and wellness engagement platform that helps people to live healthier lives by connecting them to personalized resources including local healthcare providers, high-quality information from experts, interactive programs and clinical decision support tools, including its iOS-exclusive app AskMD. The power behind Sharecare is a unique, social Q&A format that provides the collective wisdom of America’s top experts—greatly simplifying the search for health information – and its scientifically-based health risk assessment, the RealAge® Test, taken by more than 33 million people and validated in peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE as a more accurate predictor of mortality than calendar age and the Framingham Risk Score. Created by Jeff Arnold and Dr. Mehmet Oz in partnership with Harpo Productions, Sony Pictures Television and Discovery Communications, Sharecare allows people to ask, learn and act upon questions of health and wellness, creating an active community where knowledge is shared and put into practice—simply said, sharing care. Launched in 2010, Sharecare is based in Atlanta.
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Media Contact: Jen Martin
VP, Communications
jmartin@sharecare.com
404.389.4027
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