AHA grant will help promote CV health for high-risk children

Four US institutions have been named an American Heart Association Strategically Focused Prevention Research Network Center and received a $15 million grant to promote CV health among high-risk children and their caregivers.

The grant was awarded to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Northwestern University, Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. The basic, clinical and population research work of the four centers will support the AHA’s goal to improve the CV health of all Americans by 20% and to reduce deaths from CVD and stroke by 20% by 2020, according to a press release.

At Mount Sinai Heart, three AHA-funded research initiatives will focus on improving CV health in high-risk communities in New York City, including Harlem and the Bronx, by reaching out to children aged 3 to 5 years and their caregivers. The programs take a family centric approach to reduce obesity and prevent CVD by concentrating on behavior, environment and genetics, according to the release.

The first research project, based on the Sesame Street Health Habits for Life bilingual educational initiative, will assess the impact of promoting early childhood CV health education of preschool-aged children, using Muppet characters and participation from early childhood educators and staff to focus on the importance of a healthy diet within a limited budget, promote physical activity and how to manage emotions to avoid poor nutritional decisions. The second project will evaluate results of imaging technology and the promotion of health in the parents and caregivers of the young children. The third project will examine cross-generation genetic and genomic information of the children and their parents or caregivers, according to the release.

Valentin Fuster

“We hope to better understand how the intersection of a child’s behavior, environment and genetics lead to heart disease, which will refine our future prevention techniques,” principal investigator Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, physician-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital and chief of the division of cardiology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in the release.