the Family Heart Foundation initiated a Global Call to Action on Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) in 2018 to create a global movement to address FH as a public health concern. At the 20th anniversary of the landmark World Health Organization (WHO) Report on Familial Hypercholesterolemia (1998), the Family Heart Foundation recognized an opportunity to reexamine the original recommendations and engage the global community to discuss progress that has been made and continued gaps in implementation.
We discovered that 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. As a result, another generation was put at risk for premature heart disease, and even death, in the prime of life.
the Family Heart Foundation brought seven authors of the original WHO report together and commemorated their work and the legacy of Roger Williams, MD, who was posthumously-awarded FH Pioneer Award at the FH Global Summit in 2018.
We also invited the World Heart Federation and all our global partners to join us in this effort to update the recommendations. Throughout 2018, we partnered with the World Heart Federation (WHF) to convene three additional meetings of the international FH Community from over 40 countries in Marina Del Rey, Dubai and Atlanta. Together, this group of impacted individuals, advocacy leaders, international associations, scientific experts, policymakers and the original WHO authors reexamined the recommendations and updated 9 recommendations to meet the needs of today’s FH population.
