In 2022, Rio de Janeiro will be the stage of one of the largest and most important cardiology events of the year: The 77th Brazilian Congress of Cardiology together with the World Congress of Cardiology, organized by the Brazilian Society of Cardiology in partnership with the World Heart Federation. Join us on 13-15 October 2022 to discover the latest in global cardiovascular health.

This year's Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (31 October - 12 November) has been hailed as the last chance for action to avert a global climate crisis. Activists from a number of sectors welcomed key commitments, but many criticized the lack of systemic action. For the first time ever, health was featured on the agenda, and WHF made COP history by sending a delegate to ensure that CVD was featured at the Global Conference on Health and Climate Change.

Up to 50% of heart failure patients are iron deficient. The "Use Heart to Take Iron Seriously" global campaign, in collaboration with the European Haematology Association, has produced educational resources and highlighted the importance of getting people living with heart failure diagnosed for iron deficiency. It's been running throughout November, leading up to Iron Deficiency Awareness Day on 26 November.

WHF has partnered with Resolve to Save Lives, the World Hypertension League, and NCD Alliance to promote the recently released WHO hypertension treatment guidelines and advocate for the rapid adoption of these guidelines in low- and middle-income countries around the world. Considering that 1 in 7 people with hypertension do not have their blood pressure controlled, identifying, treating, and controlling hypertension must become public health priorities.

The Stroke Association Support Network-Ghana (SASNET-GHANA) celebrated World Heart Day 2021 by raising awareness of cardiovascular disease in the media. The campaign followed up on the commitment made by the Ghanian government in 2020 to improve heart health through control, prevention, and treatment. This awareness campaign was made possible with the support of WHF through the yearly World Heart Grants Programme.

The fourth WHO global tobacco trends report, released on 16 November, shows that there are 1.30 billion tobacco users globally compared to 1.32 billion in 2015. Sixty countries are now on track to achieving the global target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use between 2010 and 2025. “It is very encouraging to see fewer people using tobacco each year, and more countries on track to meet global targets”, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

The second edition of the Tobacconomics Cigarette Tax Scorecard was released on 8 November. The report shows that governments have made insufficient progress in addressing the single largest preventable cause of disease and death globally. Established evidence indicates that raising tobacco taxes would significantly reduce smoking consumption, save millions of lives, and increase government revenues.

The International Cardiac Rehabilitation Registry (ICRR) aims to evaluate cardiac rehabilitation (CR) delivery and enable quality improvement in low-resource settings, with the ultimate aim of improving patient outcomes. ICRR is looking for someone to join their research sub-committee with a background in knowledge transfer and/or health policy, experience in the cardiac rehabilitation space, and from/or experience in LMICs. Please email your CV and a short motivation letter if you are interested.

Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December — the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR is a milestone document, which proclaims the inalienable rights that everyone is entitled to as a human being - regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Everyone, everywhere deserves access to quality essential health services without suffering financial hardship. Universal Health Coverage Day, celebrated on 12 December, is the annual rallying point for advocates to raise their voices and share the stories of the millions of people still waiting for health, call on leaders to make smarter investments in health and remind the world about the imperative of universal health coverage (UHC).