Activating the FH Global Community 2018

FH Foundation_2018FH Foundation_2018Familial Hypercholesterolemia Global Impact
In 1998, the World Health Organization and several members of the international FH Community published the WHO Report on FH. In the more than 20 years since its publication, only a few of these recommendations have been widely implemented on a country-by-country basis and an entire generation of impacted individuals with FH has been lost to premature heart disease.

During the 2018 FH Global Summit, the FH Foundation (FHF) initiated a Global Call to Action to update the original recommendations and create an advocacy tool to drive FH awareness around the world and to implement the updated recommendations. We partnered with World Heart Federation (WHF) to convene the international FH Community of impacted individuals, advocacy leaders, international associations, scientific experts, policymakers and the original authors of the 1998 report to collaborate together to reexamine the recommendations and update them to meet the needs of today’s FH population.

Two meetings were hosted by the FHF and WHF in Marina del Ray, California, US on Oct 3 and in Dubai, U.A.E on Dec 6. This created a coalition of 40 countries and 90 stakeholders who provided their perspectives of FH from low-middle-high-income regions. Together, with the leadership of Dr. Sam Gidding, Jasmine Patel, and Katherine Wilemon from the FHF, and Dr. Thomas Gaziano from the WHF, a set of eight global public policy recommendations covering awareness, advocacy, screening, diagnosis, treatment, research, registries, and cost/value were created.