Black Heart Association hosts free heart screenings in Harlem

PIX 11 reported that the founders of the Black Heart Association, Tara and Frederick Robinson, stopped in Harlem, promote the importance of heart health AND to supply free screening tests

This Texas-based nonprofit organization provided free heart screenings to Harlem residents on Aug. 18 during a stop on the Guard Your Heart Tour, sponsored by biotech company Amgen. The goal is to supply free health screenings to 2,500 people by the tip of 2024. Founder Tara Robinson and her husband Frederick began the corporate in 2014 after Robinson suffered three heart attacks in seven days. The third nearly cost her her life.

The Robinsons met with Black Enterprise representatives to inform their story and explore why their work is so necessary.

“I ended up having a massive heart attack with 99 percent blockage of my left artery. That type of heart attack is known as a ‘widow maker.’ So I was 40 years old when I had the heart attack and almost didn’t make it to my 41st birthday,” Robinson said. “That led me to start doing advocacy and volunteering, and that led me to start my own nonprofit when I saw that the gap wasn’t being filled; that we needed to have a close and personal relationship with our community about our health.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released alarming statistics that black women usually tend to suffer from heart diseasecoronary artery disease and stroke deaths in comparison with white women in the U.S. “I am a strong black woman,” Robinson said. “I feel I’m the very best example of that. That is certainly a part of the explanation I had heart attacks, because I internalized a lot stress.

In February 2024, the organization partnered with the CDC Foundation’s Live to the Beat campaign on a brand new initiative called the Heart2Heart Challenge to assist Black women protect their heart health. CDC Health Equity Director Dr. Leandris Liburd encouraged women to make small commitments to enhance their heart health.

“In this challenge, we’re asking for three things: first, to commit to taking one small step, and that small step could be walking every day,” Liburd said.

“We can reduce the burden of heart disease with good medical care as well as making good lifestyle changes.”

CDC recommends to decide onf-care routine, which incorporates finding ways to scale back stress, monitoring blood pressure and cholesterol, and having a solid support system. The Robinsons use their Black Heart Mobile Unit to offer people their cholesterol results and AC-1 (diabetes) results.