Showcase

The Brief
Heart and circulatory disease is the UK's biggest killer, accounting for around four in ten deaths. As the UK's leading heart charity, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) wanted a lifestyle magazine that would promote a heart healthy lifestyle, educate on heart disease, and enable it to communicate with heart disease patients and their carers.

The Challenge
To communicate often highly technical information about the many aspects of heart disease, medical techniques and medication in a palatable and easily understood format. Alongside this, to provide practical information about diet and physical activity, to empower readers to manage and reduce heart disease.

Editorial Response
Launched in May 2004, heart health has grown from 20 pages, published quarterly, to 36 pages, bimonthly, in response to reader interest. The magazine demystifies heart disease and provides an inclusive, holistic approach to living with serious illness; this includes first person experiences, healthy eating recipes, tips for heart-appropriate exercise and ways to manage mental health.

Results
Read by more than 397K patients of coronary heart disease, their carers, and heart disease professionals, heart health is central to BHF's mandate to reduce the UK incidence of heart disease, and to improve the quality of life of those living with heart disease. The magazine delivers a broad range of content around the disease, and helps to establish the BHF as a source of additional information and advice.

In research, 95 per cent of respondents described heart health as ‘very good/good', and 89 per cent read all/most of each issue. More than 50 per cent claimed to have taken positive action to improve their lifestyle after reading heart health. On average, 2.65 people read each copy.