World Heart Federation’s 2018 Update of the 5th Emerging Leaders Seminar on Stroke Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation, in collaboration with the World Stroke Organization

The World Heart Federation’s Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Program has trained 123 emerging leaders from 48 countries over the past 5 years in implementation science, health systems, and health policy research (Figure 1). 

The program aims to create a diverse cadre of committed leaders who will help the organization in its work toward the World Health Organization’s goal of reducing the risk of premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, by 25% by 2025.  

For the 2018 cohort (Table 1), the World Heart Federation partnered with the World Stroke Organization to focus on stroke prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. 

The 2018 seminar was held from June 23-29, 2018 at Duke Kunshan University in Kunshan, China and was hosted by Dr. Lijing Yan (Figure 2). 

The 2018 program was the first time that the World Heart Federation partnered with another professional organization. The 2018 program was sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim with support from Duke Kunshan University. Previous seminars have been funded by Boehringer Ingelheim (2014-2018), Novartis (2017), BUPA (2015-2016), and AstraZeneca (2014) and have focused on essential medicines, tobacco control, raised blood pressure, and secondary prevention (Table 2). 

In 2018, Dr. Salim Yusuf provided sustainable funding for the program through an endowment, and subsequently the Emerging Leaders Program was renamed the Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Program in recognition of his support. Emerging Leaders who receive full support from the World Heart Fed.

The World Heart Federation’s Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Program consists of pre-seminar online training, a 5-day seminar with didactic and small group sessions to develop a collaborative research or advocacy project proposal, and subsequent execution of the projects over the ensuring 1 to 2 years. 

The program emphasizes active learning in leadership, communication, team work, and research and supports each of the 3 teams with 25,000 Swiss francs to pursue research and advocacy projects, which is a distinguishing feature of the training program compared with others. Previous cohorts were divided into groups based on experience and interest in implementation science, health systems strengthening, and health policy research, recognizing that overlap is common. For the 2018 cohort, the program divided the Emerging Leaders into groups focusing on stroke prevention, stroke treatment, and stroke rehabilitation. 

The 2018 teams’ projects are listed in the Table 2 and are aligned with the emphasis on implementation science (stroke rehabilitation team), health systems strengthening (stroke treatment team), and health policy research (stroke prevention team). 

The 2014-2017 teams have demonstrated success in global collaborative projects with notable productivity, and the 2018 cohort is well-positioned to continue this trend. 

The Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Program is a strategic priority area within the World Heart Federation, and its most recent partnership with the World Stroke Organization is an important step toward work in achieving the World Health Organization’s “25 x 25” goal and other global goals.

Candidates who may be interested in participating in future Emerging Leaders cohorts should visit whfel.org for more information about topic areas and timelines, including plans for the 2019 edition of the Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Program, which will focus on heart failure.

Mark D. Huffman,¹ Pablo Perel,^2,3 Jean-Luc Eisele,² David A. Wood,^2,4 Maria F. Grupper,⁵ Christopher Chen,^5,6 Craig Anderson,^5,7 Darwin R. Labarthe,¹ Salim Yusuf,^2,8 Lijing Yan⁹

¹ Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, USA

² World Heart Federation, Geneva, Switzerland

³ London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

⁴ Imperial College London, London, UK

⁵ World Stroke Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

⁶ National University Singapore, Singapore

⁷ The George Institute for Global Health China, Beijing, China

⁸ Population Health Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

⁹ Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, China

Disclosures: MDH receives funding from the World Heart Federation to serve as its senior program advisor for the Emerging Leaders program, which is supported by Boehringer Ingelheim and Novartis with previous support from BUPA and AstraZeneca. MDH also receives support from the American Heart Association, Verily, and AstraZeneca for work unrelated to this research.