Heart-to-Heart
Philadelphia Department of Public Health campaign launched in November 2025 telling people who use crack, cocaine or meth, now or in the past, that stimulants damage the heart and can cause fatal overdose, and urging them to see a doctor about heart risks. With Penn Medicine, it links people to low-barrier primary care clinics, offers a guide for talking with a doctor about stimulant use, and gives clinicians guidance. Ads ran in SEPTA stations and shelters, corner stores, bars and online in the ten ZIP codes with the highest stimulant-involved overdose rates in 2023, in North, Southwest and West Philadelphia.
- Years
- 2025–now
- Country
- United States
- Topic
- CardiovascularDrugsHarm reduction
- Asks people to
- RecognizeSeek helpTalk to someone
- Strategy
- Service linkSimple instruction
- Channel
- Clinical settingOutdoorPoint of saleSocial (paid)Website
- Audience
- AdultsCliniciansPhiladelphians who use or have used stimulants bought on the street, in ten ZIP codes outside Kensington with the highest stimulant-involved overdose rates in 2023; the department notes rising fatal overdoses among non-Hispanic Black men. Primary care clinicians get guidance from Penn Medicine.
Evidence
NoneUnknown
No results reported yet. The department based the campaign on its own analysis linking cardiovascular disease and stimulant-involved fatal overdoses.
Sponsor (who paid)
- Philadelphia Department of Public Health, Division of Substance Use Prevention and Harm Reduction (SUPHR) State local government, funder and creator
- Penn Medicine Academic, clinical partner
Credits (who made it)
Not recorded yet.
Executions (individual ads)
- Managing cardiovascular health risks for patients who use stimulants with UPenn's Dr. Rachel Truchil social-organic · youtube
Sources
Research notes
US-PA (Philadelphia). Drafted by Claude (Claude Code) on 2026-10-28 for #130 from the city press release and the campaign page listed; unreviewed, including the cardSummary. The release body is dated 5 November 2025 while the page URL says 14 November. Funding and agency not stated (no settlement funding mentioned). The release calls it the first effort of its kind in Philadelphia on stimulant-related heart damage. The one execution is a clinician video on the department's YouTube channel matched by topic and the Penn physician quoted in the release; confirm it belongs to the campaign. Topic 'cardiovascular' added because the message is heart risk.
Record cases/philadelphia-heart-to-heart.json, updated 2026-10-28· Link to this campaign