American Heart Association
The American Heart Association (AHA) is a United States based non-profit organization. It fosters state of the art cardiac care in an attempt to lower the deaths and disabilities that are caused by stroke and cardiovascular disease. The headquarters for the American Heart Association are located in Dallas, Texas. It is a voluntary health association that has a nationwide presence and whose mission is to build healthier lives free of stroke and cardiovascular diseases.
The association publishes its standard providing the basic and advanced life support as well as the standards for proper cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The American Heart Association also offers the most accepted certification for BLS, basic life support. It also provides training in first aid practices in addition to that of CPR.
The current president of the association is Ralph L. Sacco, MD and is the first neurologist to be the president of the American Heart Association. The AHA also runs an affiliated organization named the American Stroke Association that focus on the research, prevention and care of strokes.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a publication of the industry released in 1994 the results of one of the largest studies if its kind regarding non-profit and charitable organization's credibility and popularity. The study revealed the American Heart Association was the fifth ranked charity in popularity of over 100 charities.
In 2009 the AHA and the Ad Council unveiled a website and a Hands Only CPR PSA. The site was updated in 2011 with new content that includes an app that can be downloaded to help learn the correct methods of Hand-Only CPR. In November of 2009 the AHA announced a new awareness program for cardiac arrest named "Be the Beat."
The association endorsed the Nintendo Wii in May of 2010 to try to encourage people to get involved with some level of fitness. The icon for the AHA is featured on the Wii console box as well as on the boxes of Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus.
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