1 April, 2022 (NEW YORK, NY)—Today, Resolve to Save Lives started a new chapter as an independent, U.S.-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to strengthening global public health and saving lives through public health action after five successful years of rapid expansion incubated at Vital Strategies.
Resolve to Save Lives has the goal of saving 100 million lives from heart disease and preventing epidemics. It was founded in 2017 by Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and former commissioner of the New York City Health Department.
In just five years, Resolve to Save Lives has had an outsized impact by partnering with countries and organizations to make rapid progress strengthening public health systems globally and saving lives, including:
- Partnering with the World Health Organization to advance global elimination of artificial trans fat through the REPLACE initiative, which has already protected nearly 3 billion people from this toxic chemical and will thereby save millions of lives
- Creating a free, fast, open-source electronic health record app for providers to track patients’ blood pressure and medications, adopted by more 6,000 health facilities, helping improve care of nearly 2 million patients across South Asia and Africa
- Releasing hypertension treatment protocols that improve decision-making for care providers, expand the number of health workers who can treat high blood pressure, and help health systems better manage medication costs and supply
- Partnering with countries to support treatment for 5.9M people with high blood pressure in more than 40 low- and middle-income countries
- Training more than 350,000 health workers in more than 13,000 health facilities in 14 countries on best-practice high blood pressure diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring
- Implementing policies and programs affecting more than 74M people with high blood pressure in 20 countries
- Identifying high-impact interventions to reduce sodium intake, including sodium reduction targets, public food procurement, front-of-package labelling and low sodium salt research
- Guiding more than $40 billion in epidemic response funds for improved preparedness for hundreds of millions of people globally
- Training more than 42,000 health care workers across more than 8,400 health centers in 22 countries to safely treat COVID-19 patients.
- Developing the 7-1-7 global target and accountability metric for identifying, reporting, and mounting effective responses against infectious disease outbreaks
- Publishing a report highlighting the risks health care workers face and advocating, along with 17 partner organizations, for actions to protect them
- Releasing a first-of-its-kind interactive digital report on Epidemics that Didn’t Happen, illustrating stories of outbreaks prevented from becoming epidemics
- Conducting four waves of data collection and analysis to help decision-makers in 19 countries of Africa adapt Covid control measures by determining the acceptability, impact and effectiveness of COVID-19 preventive measures
- Working with Vital Strategies to respond to Covid rapidly across the globe, including through improved response in cities, better collection and use of vital data, and continued progress on a wide range of public health priorities despite the pandemic
“We thank Vital Strategies for serving as an incubator for our work saving lives globally and are excited to accelerate progress in the coming years,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives. “Covid-19 exposed the fragility of our public health systems globally, and in this next phase of our organization we will work with partners to accelerate progress toward a healthier, safer world.”
For more information or to learn more about Resolve to Saves Lives, please visit: www.resolvetosavelives.org
###
About Resolve to Save Lives
Resolve to Save Lives is a not-for-profit organization partnering with countries, communities and organizations to prevent 100 million deaths from cardiovascular disease and make the world safer from epidemics. To find out more, visit: https://resolvetosavelives.org or Twitter @ResolveTSL.
Media Contacts:
- Steven Chlapecka, Resolve to Save Lives, [email protected],
- General Press Inquiries, [email protected]