Putting a Spotlight on Heart Valve Disease

June 09, 2025

Background

Heart valve disease (HVD) affects more than 5 million Americans and leads to 25,000 deaths annually, with rates expected to increase as the U.S. population continues to age. In 2021, Congressman Andy Barr sponsored the Cardiovascular Advances in Research and Opportunities Legacy (CAROL) Act to prioritize research funding for HVD. His bill was in honor of his late wife, Eleanor “Carol” Leavell Barr, who passed away from sudden cardiac death associated with undiagnosed heart valve disease. She was only 39.

The CAROL Act was signed into law in December 2022, and appropriated funds for HVD research to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood institute as well as funds for a public awareness campaign to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP) was tasked with raising awareness about risk factors, symptoms, and prevention measures. Palladian has been DHDSP’s trusted communications thought partner in matters of the heart for over a decade, so when it came to their work on heart valve disease, there was no better team than Palladian to develop and execute the campaign.

Our Approach

Increased awareness about HVD risk factors, symptoms, and prevention measures has a real impact on reducing deaths and improving quality of life. Palladian’s deep knowledge of DHDSP’s work and expertise in health communications gave us unique insight into how to maximize audience awareness within the short timeframe we had to work with. 

Building on the formative research from our partners at Abt Global, we designed a campaign around three main objectives: increasing awareness of HVD as a type of heart disease; emphasizing the importance of patient-health care professional communication about all heart heath concerns, including HVD; and improving the likelihood that patients would talk to their providers about heart health concerns.

Increasing awareness was paramount for the two primary audiences: the public and healthcare professionals. Heart valve disease affects 2.5% of Americans and diagnoses in the United States are projected to more than double by 2050, yet nearly 75% of adults in the United States know little to nothing about it. Our strategy was to create impactful and educational assets that were accessible in a user-friendly online experience. We produced infographics, fact sheets, and videos designed to educate and empower patients, such as our compelling video success stories from individuals living with heart valve disease. These narratives offer hope for those with HVD, practical guidance for navigating treatment, and encourage people recently diagnosed or at risk of HVD to initiate discussions with their health care teams. 

On the other side of the conversation, we created turn-key tools to enhance health care professionals’ understanding of HVD as an undiagnosed and undertreated condition and spur conversations with their patients. By equipping providers with accessible and actionable information, we help facilitate early detection and better management of HVD, addressing a critical gap in patient-provider communication and disease awareness. We also created an animated video for healthcare teams to use to kickstart the conversation around heart valve disease with their patients.

The initiative was labeled “Know Your Heart,” a simple yet effective message capable of speaking to the human experience of cardiovascular disease as well as the more technical nature of heart valve disease such as aortic stenosis.