The big problem

Burden of disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the world’s leading cause of death – despite being largely preventable.

Lives lost

Each year, more than 20 million people die due to cardiovascular disease.

Health inequity

Most premature CVD deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, many of which before the age of 60. High-income settings are seeing a new surge in CVD affecting marginalized populations.

Economic impact

The big goal


The impact

CARDIO4Cities is a holistic, data-driven, multisectoral partnership approach that improves the cardiovascular health in urban populations.

The approach

6 pillars for rapid and sustainable impact

C
Quality of Care
Improving hypertension management with streamlined protocols and training of healthcare professionals.
A
Ensure Access
Bringing health and care closer to where people live and work and engaging non-health players.
R
Reform Policies
Governments should enforce strategies and reforms, taxation and incentive structures, to address the growing burden of cardiovascular disease.
D
Data & Digital
Beside the collection and use of real-time data, digital technology provides an array of opportunities to transform the way health and care are delivered.
I
Intersectoral Collaboration
Public- and private-sector stakeholders from across society are all playing a role in fighting hypertension.
O
Local Ownership
Local authorities and local partners should own the design, implementation and monitoring of interventions and solutions to fight hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Why CARDIO4Cities

Based on whole-of-city approach to improve urban health that puts people at the centre of interventions.

Evolving into a precision population health approach that leverages the power of data and AI to improve population health and target impactful solutions backed by global best practice.

Helps cities tailor the approach to their local context, with multisectoral, locally tailored interventions and innovations that are embedded in health systems, to ensure lasting impact.

Getting Started

The CARDIO4Cities Playbook

Our playbook offers simple step-by-step guidance to tailor the proven CARDIO4Cities approach to your city’s needs. Get started today and enable better heart health for your citizens!

What Cities, Experts and Partners say

São Paulo, Brazil

Thais Junqueira

CEO of Umane

Health policies work on a country level, but health solutions must meet local needs while still being simple. CARDIO4Cities strikes this very delicate balance, and helped us tremendously in identifying the right interventions to transform heart health in São Paulo. With our learnings, we have now expanded the program to more cities in Brazil.

Stanford, CA, United States of America

Michelle Williams

Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health, Stanford School of Medicine

While our current healthcare approach focuses on treating diseases in individuals, it lacks the infrastructure to effectively manage population health. New initiatives like CARDIO4Cities offer significant potential to optimize strategic investments.

São Paulo, Brazil

Juliana Opípari

Executive Manager of Social Responsibility and Sustainability, BP – Beneficência Portuguesa de São Paulo

BP is a philanthropic hospital with a strong social commitment. Through CARDIO4Cities, we are expanding and amplifying our impact towards even more people in need in Brazil. We are happy to host the CARDIO4Cities Regional HUB, to be able to extend this impact to Latin America and Portuguese-speaking countries, further strengthening our commitment to the prevention of non-communicable diseases, health promotion, and a more equitable healthcare system.

Zurich, Switzerland

Stefan Huber

Head Swiss Re Foundation

In 2024, we supported the replication of the CARDIO4Cities approach in two municipalities in Northeastern Brazil. Preventing noncommunicable diseases, accounting for 75% of non-pandemic deaths globally, is key for the long-term sustainability of healthcare systems. The Swiss Re Foundation supports a focus on prevention rather than treatment, as this approach can improve the quality of life for individuals and reduce the costs associated with chronic diseases.

Join today!

What is CARDIO4Cities, and what are its goals?

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CARDIO4Cities is a population health approach created by the Novartis Foundation to tackle the growing burden of cardiovascular disease. It rapidly improves heart health in city populations by supporting health professionals, patients and the health system to accelerate early detection of cardiovascular risk and optimizing its care and management. Enabling data-driven decision making, and unlocking the power of multi-sector partnerships, CARDIO4Cities now reaches over 40 million people and has proven to be impactful, cost-effective, and scalable in different geographies around the globe.

How does CARDIO4Cities work?

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CARDIO4Cities consists of a six-pillar strategy that collectively accelerate and improve access to quality health and care for cardiovascular conditions and create more heart-healthy cities. CARDIO is an acronym, shorthand for quality of Care, early Access, policy Reform, Data and digital, Intersectoral collaboration, and local Ownership. The approach offers guidance and solutions on how to design and implement cardiovascular population health roadmaps that are tailored to local needs, priorities and capabilities. CARDIO4Cities is an approach built to continuously improve, and to be embedded within a city’s existing health system.

What are the benefits of implementing CARDIO4Cities in my city?

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By 2050, more than 70% of our world’s population is estimated to live in cities. Compounding with global aging of our populations and more and more people living with non-communicable diseases, health systems will face ever-growing pressures, and economic growth may stifle following productivity losses.

CARDIO4Cities is designed to address the growing burden of cardiovascular disease in cities with precision and pragmatism. By implementing CARDIO4Cities, city leaders can champion greater heart health for the populations they serve.

CARDIO4Cities aims at reducing overall cardiovascular risk (hypertension, diabetes and dyslipidaemia), by accelerating early detection of and prompt adequate management of those risk factors and equipping decision makers and health authorities with the data and insights to tailor health interventions specifically to where they are needed most.

How can I get my city involved in CARDIO4Cities?

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With the CARDIO4Cities Accelerator, the Novartis Foundation invites city leaders and decision makers to leverage CARDIO4Cities for improving the heart health of the populations in their jurisdiction. Leaders can familiarize themselves with the content of the CARDIO4Cities website that contains a rich catalogue of successful interventions and the CARDIO4Cities Playbook, with useful advice and tools on how to design and implement a local CARDIO4Cities roadmap and create rapid impact on cardiovascular health.

Are there any criteria a city needs to meet to launch CARDIO4Cities?

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When a city expresses interest in CARDIO4Cities, a multidisciplinary steering committee led by the city stakeholders should be set up to ensure alignment of all partners behind the same goal. Based on local baseline prevalence, the steering committee sets the city’s targets for reducing overall cardiovascular risk by improving the detection and control rates of hypertension, diabetes and high LDL-cholesterol in the urban population. The Steering Committee then co-designs a cardiovascular population health roadmap, with interventions and innovations to accelerate detection and adequate management of CV risk factors, and a standard data dashboard to regularly monitor progress towards achieving the targets.

Are there any proof points for CARDIO4Cities to be effective?

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Yes. After a short implementation period of 1.5 to 2 years, CARDIO4Cities managed to increase pressure control rates in the pioneering cities of São Paulo (Brazil), Dakar (Senegal) and Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) up to more than three times. This translated into remarkable reductions of up to 13% of strokes and 12% of acute coronary event rates.

What are the costs of CARDIO4Cities?

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Who created CARDIO4Cities?

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CARDIO4Cities was designed and pioneered by the Novartis Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Switzerland. For over 40 years, the foundation has helped improve the health of low-income populations, initially supporting disease elimination in areas such as leprosy and malaria. Today, we tackle the burning health issues of our time: cardiovascular disease and health inequities. We take a population health approach by widening the lens from a narrow focus on healthcare delivery to a panoramic view on improving health in the population at large. The Novartis Foundation’s work brings together existing but disconnected data to help authorities understand the main determinants that predict health outcomes and disparities in these health outcomes. That understanding then allows city leaders to find the best ways and partners to remediate them; ultimately, the Novartis Foundation aim to empower local authorities to transform their health systems from being reactive to becoming proactive, predictive, and preventative, so that they can keep their populations healthy.

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