World Heart Day 2018 took place at the weekend, and to mark the occasion, medical publishers are giving readers free access to cardiology journal articles.

World Heart Day is a global campaign co-ordinated by the World Heart Federation to drive international action on cardiovascular disease at an individual, community and government level. Cardiovascular disease results in 17.5 million deaths every year making it the leading cause of death globally. This World Heart Day organisers encourage us all to pledge to take steps to improve our heart health and reduce risk of heart disease and stroke.

To mark the event, the medical publisher Elsevier has made some of their top cardiology articles free to access during October, while editors at the open access publisher BioMedCentral have also highlighted key cardiology papers to read and share.

A whole host of other activities took place globally to raise awareness and mark the day. Below is just a selection:

• Awareness and education events were held by the Spanish Heart Foundation (Spain), Heart Friends around the World (Italy), the Libyan Medical Students Association (Libya), Stellenbosch University, (South Africa), the Phi-Zeta Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega (Georgia, USA), Socieidad de Enfermería Cardiovascular de Panamá (Panama), the Brazilian Society of Cardiology (Brazil), the Kodiak Area Native Association (Alaska), University of Sydney (Australia), the Iranian Heart Foundation (Iran), and many more.
• Health screenings were run by OMRON Slovakia (Slovakia), the Foundation of Health and Heart (Bosnia and Herzegovina), the National Network Heart for Heart (Bulgaria), the Inspire Nurses Network Africa (Nigeria), Cummins (Mexico), Olive House (Malaysia), Savan Resorts (Laos), among others.
• Exhibitions were held by the Canary Islands Cardiology Society (Tenerife), FJKluth Art Gallery (Ohio, USA), Lopez Galvez Asesores (Mexico), Chongqing General Hospital (China), and others.

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Summary by Alice Wareham PhD from Aspire Scientific

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