The ACC has submitted its fiscal year (FY) 2023 appropriations requests for increases in cardiovascular disease research and prevention funding at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

These requests align with the American Heart Association (AHA) recommendations for CDC heart and stroke programs, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids recommendations for the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, and Conquering CHD (previously known as the Pediatric Congenital Heart Association) recommendations for congenital heart disease (CHD) research funding. In addition, these programs have long been championed by the National Coalition for Heart and Stroke Research.

These funding numbers are based on a series of factors: meaningful growth above inflation, the top policy priorities of Appropriations Committee chairs and ranking members, as well as the program’s funding history and vulnerability to cuts.

Agency/Program	FY22 Funding Level	FY23 Request
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institution (NHLBI)	$3.8 billion	$4.015 billion
CDC Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention	$145 million	$160 million
CDC WISEWOMAN	$30.12 million	$46.7 million
CDC Million Hearts	$4 million	$14 million
CDC Congenital Heart Disease Research	$7.25 million	$10 million
CDC Office on Smoking and Health	$241 million	$310 million

• Additional funding for NHLBI would support research on COVID-19 by leveraging existing NIH-funded studies and infrastructure. The institute is also establishing partnerships to address health disparities by co-leading the Community Engagement Alliance Against COVID-19 Disparities Initiative. Given that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths, NHLBI has taken a lead role in working with others at NIH to support research to reduce the nation’s alarming rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, and new programs aim to move evidence-based interventions for maternal health into broader practice.
  
  
• CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention would invest new funding in the following ways: explore and contribute to emerging science around the intersections between COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease; build or enhance critical data infrastructure since a pressing need is for timely, population-level data stratified by race/ethnicity on the key risk factors for cardiovascular disease; and expand current work in priority areas through new partnerships, programs, and projects, all focused on eliminating disparities in health outcomes.
  
  
• The FY23 request is substantially higher for CDC’s WISEWOMAN, a healthy lifestyle program that provides qualifying women with free screenings and counseling about their risk for heart disease and stroke. WISEWOMAN is currently available in only 27 states, but the AHA and CDC have determined the higher funding level will be sufficient to provide services in all 50 states. It’s thought to be an ideal time to ask for additional funds as Congressional leaders have shown renewed interest in women’s heart health.
  
  
• Million Hearts, an initiative co-led by the CDC and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that works with public- and private-sector partners with a goal of preventing 1 million heart attacks and strokes in 5 years, completed its second five-year phase at the end of 2021. New funding would frontload the success of Million Hearts 3.0 by facilitating extensive partner input into the design of the next 5-year phase; integration of insights gleaned from the pandemic, including and especially the inequities further exposed by COVID-19; and analysis of the individual, community, and health care actions with the greatest impact on cardiovascular health.
  
  
• Conquering CHD recommends $10 million for CDC congenital heart disease surveillance and public health research to collect and analyze nationally-representative, population-based epidemiological and longitudinal data on infants, children, and adults with CHD to improve understanding of CHD incidence, prevalence, and disease burden, and further assess the public health impact of CHD across the lifespan.
  
  
• The patient and clinician community believes additional funding is needed for CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health to respond to the alarmingly high e-cigarette rates among youth and the devastating toll that tobacco continues to take on the nation’s health during the COVID-19 pandemic.  An increase would allow for the expansion of efforts to address the epidemic of e-cigarette use among youth and increase efforts to assist groups/regions disproportionately harmed by tobacco use.

Read last year’s requests here.

Clinical Topics: Cardiovascular Care Team, Congenital Heart Disease and Pediatric Cardiology, COVID-19 Hub, Prevention, Congenital Heart Disease, CHD and Pediatrics and Prevention, CHD and Pediatrics and Quality Improvement, Smoking

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, Tobacco Use, Myocardial Infarction, Outcome Assessment, Health Care, Healthy Lifestyle, Heart Defects, Congenital, Heart Disease Risk Factors, Stroke, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S., Medicare, Vaping, Public Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (U.S.), Maternal Mortality, Maternal Health, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S., Cardiovascular Diseases, American Heart Association, Tobacco, Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems, COVID-19, Pregnancy, ACC Advocacy

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