Promoting Cardiovascular Health

Resolve to Save Lives

Resolve to Save Lives Cardiovascular Health Initiative is a global public health initiative that helps governments and civil society implement scalable, proven strategies to prevent cardiovascular disease. The Initiative is focused on three elements: improving treatment of high blood pressure, reducing sodium intake, and eliminating artificial trans fats. 

In 2017, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gates Philanthropy Partners, which is funded with support from the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation committed $225 million to support Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) for five years. In 2022, Bloomberg Philanthropies committed an additional $115 million over the next five years to support Resolve to Save Lives’ goal of saving 100 million lives from cardiovascular disease by 2047. This announcement brings Bloomberg Philanthropies’ total investment to RTSL to $215 million.   

In this next phase of funding, RTSL will work to further reduce preventable deaths from heart attack and stroke by scaling up three proven, life-saving strategies that directly reduce risk factors for heart disease:  

• Trans Fat Elimination: RTSL will work to keep trans fat out of food in more than 30 additional countries through policy change, protecting more than 80% of the global population from this harmful, unnecessary chemical.  
• Sodium Reduction: By demonstrating, documenting, and disseminating strategies to reduce sodium intake, RTSL will continue to work with low- and middle-income governments to reduce salt in food. These strategies include promotion of low-sodium salt substitutes, nutritional standards for foods sold and served in government facilities such as schools and hospitals, and implementation of mandatory salt targets for packaged food.  
• Hypertension Control and Treatment: Resolve to Save Lives will expand treatment of high blood pressure to reach more than 40 million patients across 31 countries by 2027, while promoting global policies to advance best practices in hypertension programs, including simple treatment protocols, reliable supply of medications, expanding the role of nurses and community health workers in care, reducing barriers to patient adherence, and strengthening data collection for rapid and continuous quality improvement. 

To date, Bloomberg Philanthropies has supported Resolve to Save Lives to work with local partners to help 32 countries pass trans fat bans, establish and expand effective diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of high blood pressure in 21 countries, and identify the highest-impact interventions to reduce salt intake and influence global policy. 

Resolve to Save Lives works with global and regional partners including the World Health Organization, Global Health Advocacy Incubator, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, World Bank, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the CDC Foundation, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).