On Sunday, June 9th, the Los Angeles Rams football team collaborated with Edwards Lifesciences for a heart health awareness event called On the Sidelines. LA natives came from far and wide to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA to learn their heart numbers and consult with doctors on how to maintain cardiovascular health.
“We are looking at trying to deliver education and awareness to underserved populations,” Cedric Cravens, MD, told BDO in an exclusive interview. Dr. Cravens, the director of patient engagement and health access equity at Edwards, organized this event with the Rams to raise awareness about heart disease and heart valve disease, particularly in underserved communities. Dr. Cravens emphasized the importance of closing the disparity gap in heart valve replacements, noting that “91 percent of all heart valves are implanted into white Americans” while only “nine percent are implanted into all other racial and ethnic groups combined.”
The goal was to “drive awareness within the local Los Angeles community about heart disease and heart valve disease.” Dr. Cravens said, “Our objective is to reach those populations that quite often we’re gonna have a difficult time, getting their folks educated.” By partnering with the LA Rams, a trusted community organization, Cedric aimed to reach people who might not otherwise have access to this information and encourage them to prioritize their heart health.
Nina Holloman, 62, learned about On the Sidelines from a Facebook post by the Rams, spurring her into action to get screened. ”I have a lot of, individuals in my families and my circles of influence that are battling heart disease,” Holloman told BDO. “My mother passed away from heart disease.” She wanted to be proactive and learn what she could do to avoid the same fate as her family members with heart issues: “I just needed to inform myself and be proactive on what I can do [so] that I don’t have to take the same role they did.”
As an athlete, Rams safety Quentin Lake tells BDO that he learned the hard way that outward appearances can be deceiving when it comes to health. Heart disease, the leading cause of death in America and even more so in the Black American community, often strikes without obvious symptoms. That was a sobering realization for the NFL player.
Both of Lake’s grandfathers battled heart issues, with one passing away from a heart attack. Their struggles have motivated him to use his platform to raise awareness about this silent killer. Getting screened opened his eyes to risk factors like fatigue that he had brushed off before.
We can’t afford to be complacent, Lake states. “I think the biggest thing is that heart disease is a leading cause of death in America, but more so than that, some of the symptoms that you deal with with heart disease are asymptomatic, which I didn’t know.” He implores everyone, especially young Black men, to get proactive about heart health. Get checked, prioritize your cardiovascular fitness, and don’t ignore potential warning signs. The costs of inaction are far too high.
“I think the habits that you form as an as a young person, carries over into your life and and really will set the foundation for a healthy long life, I believe,” Carnell Lake, the father of Quentin and former Pittsburgh Steelers football coach, adds. “We wanna make sure that people [are] aware that there are resources out there for them to take baby steps to heart health.” Carnell was among one of the 80 participants in the heart health screening.
Our lives and those of our loved ones depend on taking heart disease seriously, according to Lake. This is a fight we all need to join. The athlete hopes to lead by example, modeling the healthy habits he wants to see more men adopt when it comes to heart care.
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