On June 2, the College submitted written testimony to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (LHHS) Subcommittee outlining all ACC appropriations requests for Fiscal Year 2018 (FY18), including recommendations for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, and congenital heart disease research funding. Given the budgetary climate and uncertainty surrounding the future of non-defense discretionary funding, these requests focus on programs most closely aligned with ACC's mission.

Cardiovascular disease remains one of the most underfunded deadly diseases, with the NIH only investing four percent of its research dollars on heart research. ACC requested the LHHS subcommittee allocate $36 billion for the NIH, with $3.4 billion going towards the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and $1.9 billion towards the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to increase NIH's purchasing power and to preserve U.S. leadership in research. Biomedical advancements at the NHLBI have contributed to a 71 percent decrease in death rates due to cardiovascular disease. The NINDS Stroke Clinical Trials Network develops high-quality, multi-site clinical trials focused on key interventions in stroke prevention, treatment and recovery.

CDC's chronic disease programs play a vital role in protecting public health through healthy lifestyle promotion and educational activities designed to curb non-infectious diseases such as obesity, diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease. The College requested that $175 million be allocated towards CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention to strengthen heart disease prevention efforts at state and local levels and $5 million for CDC's Million Hearts program, an initiative that aims to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes by 2022 by encouraging the public to lead an active lifestyle, improve medication adherence, and encourage smoking cessation. A request for $37 million was submitted for CDC’s WISEWOMAN program, which helps uninsured or underinsured women prevent or control heart disease. Finally, the College requested that $7 million go towards CDC’s congenital heart disease research and surveillance and $210 million to fund CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.

Keywords: Cardiovascular Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S., Heart Diseases, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (U.S.), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (U.S.), National Institutes of Health (U.S.), Smoking Cessation

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