It Starts with Your Heart: Understanding Heart and Circulatory Diseases
Every three minutes, someone in the UK dies from a heart or circulatory disease. Let's beat heartbreak forever.
- Duration3 weeks
- Weekly study3 hours
It Starts with Your Heart: Understanding Heart and Circulatory Diseases
1 in 4 of us die from heart and circulatory diseases in the UK. Lets change that
When was the last time you had a conversation about heart or circulatory diseases? They are the world’s biggest killers but we don’t often talk about them. We want to change that. People are often surprised to hear about how diseases like coronary heart disease, stroke, vascular dementia and their risk factors like diabetes are connected. This course will help you learn more about what these diseases are, the effect that they have on your body and how our pioneering research is taking us closer to a world without them – helping you to have conversations that have the potential to beat heartbreak forever.
Please note that this course was last updated in August 2020. All of the statistics referenced in the articles are up to date. The videos however were filmed in 2018 and some of the stats that are referenced are now out of date.
What topics will you cover?
- Explore what heart and circulatory diseases and their risk factors are
- Understand the impact they have globally, in the UK and in our community
- Explore how these diseases are connected by your circulatory system
- You’ll also get a taste of how our research is beating heartbreak forever
When would you like to start?
Start straight away and learn at your own pace. If the course hasn’t started yet you’ll see the future date listed below.
Available now
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Explain what heart and circulatory diseases are
- Describe how these diseases are connected
- Discuss the risk factors that lead to heart and circulatory diseases, and what you can do to help beat the heartbreak that they cause
- Explore how research is looking to find better ways to prevent, treat and cure heart and circulatory diseases
Who is the course for?
This course is aimed at anyone who wants to learn more about the fundamentals of heart and circulatory diseases and the things that cause them.
You might be personally affected by heart or circulatory diseases, or maybe you’ve recently been told you’re at risk of developing them. You may be looking to improve your knowledge so you can better support a loved one or a healthcare professional looking to help people better understand and talk about heart and circulatory diseases.
Whatever you’ve come here for – we hope you take something meaningful away.
No prior knowledge of heart or circulatory diseases is needed.
Who will you learn with?
Hi I’m Simon, the former Chief Executive of the British Heart Foundation and a lead educator on our first online course understanding heart and circulatory diseases – it starts with your heart
Hi, my name is Becky. I have Long QT syndrome – a heart disease that I inherited. I’ve been sharing my story to help the BHF to raise awareness of heart and circulatory diseases.
I’m part of the communications team at the BHF. Beating heart and circulatory diseases is an important cause to me because I have heart disease in my family. I’m here to help answer your questions.
Who developed the course?
British Heart Foundation
The British Heart Foundation raises money to fund research to keep hearts beating and blood flowing. Their vision is a world without heart and circulatory diseases.
Learning on FutureLearn
Your learning, your rules
- Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps, but you can complete them as quickly or slowly as you like
- Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
- Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores
Join a global classroom
- Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
- Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
- Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others
Map your progress
- As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
- Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
- Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate
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Join this course
Free
Join free and you will get:
- Access to this course for 5 weeks
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- Access to this course for as long as it’s on FutureLearn
- A print and digital Certificate of Achievement once you’re eligible
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- Access to this course, and hundreds of other FutureLearn short courses and tests for a year
- A printable digital Certificate of Achievement on all short courses once you’re eligible
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- The flexibility to complete your choice of short courses in your own time within the year
Find out more about upgrades or Unlimited.
Available until 19 April 2021 at 23:59 (UTC). T&Cs apply.
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