What Activities and Focus Areas Does the European Heart Network Work On?

The European Heart Network (EHN) works across four main activity areas — CVD prevention, CVD patients, CVD research, and projects/publications/campaigns — with advocacy, networking, and capacity-building as the methods running through all of them. Its stated goal is the prevention and reduction of cardiovascular diseases, particularly heart disease and stroke, and its mission and vision frame every European as having a right to a life free from avoidable CVD.

CVD Prevention

EHN's prevention work centres on reducing exposure to the main risk factors for cardiovascular disease. In its own framing, "a greater reduction of exposure to the main risk factors for CVD would increase the number of years lived in good health." This makes prevention the activity area most directly tied to the organisation's mission and to the health-outcome logic behind its advocacy.

CVD Patients

On the patient side, EHN works on EU policy files related to issues that affect patients with cardiovascular disease. This is policy-facing work rather than individual clinical guidance: the focus is on the regulatory and policy environment that shapes patient interests across Europe.

CVD Research

EHN's research activity has two connected parts:

• The EHN Research Platform, which brings together members that fund research and facilitates networking and exchange among them.
• Patient involvement in projects, which EHN describes as facilitating meaningful and structured involvement so that patients can be active partners in creating person-centred cardiovascular research and innovation.

The platform also supports interaction between research-funding members and members of the EHN Patient Group, linking the research and patient strands.

Projects, Publications, and Campaigns

EHN runs projects, publishes materials, and runs awareness and advocacy campaigns. Its campaigns are described as raising awareness and advocating on cardiovascular health issues. Recent news items on the site illustrate the pattern: EHN welcomed the European Commission's proposal for a Council Recommendation on cardiovascular health checks as reflecting key recommendations from European heart health stakeholders, and it highlighted member activities across Europe for World Heart Day 2026 and the first EU Screening Week.

The Scale Behind the Work

EHN's activity areas are grounded in the burden figures it publishes on European cardiovascular disease statistics:

How the Pieces Fit Together

The structure is best read as a chain rather than a list. Prevention aims to cut risk-factor exposure and extend healthy years; patient work addresses the policy files that affect people already living with CVD; research funding and patient involvement aim to shape person-centred innovation; and projects, publications, and campaigns communicate and advocate around all of it. EHN's membership base — national heart foundations and associations committed to preventing CVD in Europe, supporting patients, representing patient interests, and funding research — mirrors these same functions at national level.

If you want to go deeper, the site's own sections on CVD Prevention, CVD Patients, CVD Research, EHN Projects, EHN Publications, and EHN Campaigns are the natural entry points, alongside its CVD statistics pages and the Strategic Plan 2023–2030.