Living with a cardiovascular disease at a young age has taught me how easy it is for our voices to go unnoticed. That is why I feel privileged to work in this field: it gives me the chance to draw attention to these issues and help bring them into the European debate. Not everyone has the same opportunity, and that is also why I feel it is our responsibility to create spaces and give a voice to those who are often not heard.
This is where Young Hearts comes from. An initiative launched as part of my work, but also deeply shaped by my personal experience. The idea was simple: bring together young patients, share experiences, understand where systems are failing, and turn this evidence into concrete demands for change.
At the beginning, it could have been just another drop in the ocean; another position paper with little follow-up. Instead, step by step, Young Hearts began to attract attention: not only to the group, but above all to an issue that is still far too underrepresented.
This journey reached a particularly meaningful moment last Friday, when DG SANTE invited me to moderate the only session dedicated to cardiovascular health in the context of European Youth Week at the European Parliament. An important occasion, made even more special by the participation of the other Young Hearts members, who actively contributed to the discussion.
The context is particularly favourable today: with the EU Safe Hearts Plan for cardiovascular health, the way this issue is discussed is finally broadening, moving from an approach focused exclusively on disease to a wider vision of cardiovascular health throughout the whole course of life. In this framework, increasingly concrete spaces are opening up to include the perspective of younger people too, often the “unusual suspects” when talking about cardiovascular diseases, and for this very reason left on the margins of the debate for far too long.
An important milestone, which however is not the result of individual work.
It is the result of the courage of the Young Hearts members, who chose to share their stories - often personal, not always easy to tell - making the discussion authentic and concrete. And it is also thanks to EHN, which believed in this initiative and gave me the space to try, that this journey has been possible.
What began as a small project is now opening up new opportunities. And this is only the beginning.
Read: https://ehnheart.org/activities/patients/join-the-young-hearts/
Mehitable Holler, European Heart Network
