British Heart Foundation (UK) — NHS Data for Heart & Circulatory Conditions
Client: British Heart Foundation (charity). Scope: heart and circulatory disease — coronary heart disease, heart attack, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and the cardiovascular overlap with stroke and vascular dementia.
Two aggregate, cookie-free layers. First, search listening across six custom clusters covering the whole cardiovascular journey. Second, NHS data — QOF cardiovascular registers and English Prescribing Dataset dispensing. The big difference from stroke: heart and circulatory disease gives us five or six separate QOF registers, so we build condition-specific overlays and BHF weights toward whichever condition the campaign is about.
Neither layer infers or labels anyone's health status. Search listening targets what people actively query. QOF and prescribing data are published, area-level statistics — they show where cardiovascular treatment load is highest, never who has a heart condition.
Audience segments summary
| Segment | Audience | Core intent |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Heart attack — warning signs & act-now | General public, families | Emergency recognition and response |
| 2. Heart failure — symptoms & living with | Patients, families, carers | HF diagnosis, daily management, Entresto |
| 3. Atrial fibrillation & arrhythmia | Patients with palpitations | AF awareness, pulse check, stroke prevention |
| 4. Prevention, risk & 'know your numbers' | General public, at-risk 40+ | BP, cholesterol, heart age, lifestyle |
| 5. Cardiac arrest, CPR & defibrillators | General public, workplaces | Learn CPR, find PAD, RevivR |
| 6. Medication & secondary prevention | Patients, carers | Cardiac drug side effects, adherence |
| NHS cardiovascular geographic overlay | Weighting layer | QOF CHD/HF/AF/HYP/PAD/STIA + EPD dispensing |
The NHS Geographic Build
The method, kept simple. Pick the one signal that matches the campaign (a QOF register, or the cleanest fingerprint drug for the condition), rank every area high-to-low on it, and take the top slice. That's the audience. No weighted composite, no black-box scoring — just "these are the areas where this condition is most concentrated, target here first."
Two published sources, used to rank areas and hand over the top ones to target — ready to paste into ad sets. No onboarding, no policy exception, nothing individual-level.
| QOF register | What it measures | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| CHD | % of list on the CHD register | Heart attack / angina / general cardiac campaigns |
| HF | % on the heart-failure register | Heart-failure awareness and support |
| AF | % on the AF register | Stroke-prevention and pulse-check campaigns |
| HYP | % on the hypertension register | 'Know your numbers' / blood-pressure drives |
| PAD | % on the PAD register | Circulatory / amputation-prevention messaging |
| STIA | % on the stroke/TIA register | Cardiovascular overlap, vascular dementia |
A ranked list of postcode districts, cut into delivery tiers
Pick the anchor — usually the matching QOF register — rank areas by it, take the top ~10–20%, done. The drug dispensing is an optional sanity check, not a second thing to average in. Used as a geographic target list, never individual-level targeting.
QOF and EPD are England. Scotland, Wales and NI publish their own equivalents (Public Health Scotland, StatsWales / NHS Wales, NI Department of Health). A UK-wide buy means a separate assembly step for the devolved nations, and those layers aren't identically defined.
Picking the Fingerprint Drug per Condition
Don't pool the whole cardiovascular list — statins and blood-pressure tablets are dispensed to millions, so lumping them together just maps "older population." Instead, for each condition there's one clean fingerprint drug to rank areas on.
Every substance below is confirmed present in the supplied list. Pick the row that matches the campaign and rank on that drug's dispensing (or better, the matching QOF register).
| Condition | Cleanest fingerprint drugs (in the list) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Heart failure | Sacubitril/valsartan, ivabradine, eplerenone, high-ceiling loop diuretics (furosemide, bumetanide, torasemide, metolazone) | Sacubitril/valsartan is HF-only — the single cleanest cardiac-condition signal in the list. Eplerenone is largely HF/post-MI. |
| Angina / stable CHD | Glyceryl trinitrate, isosorbide mononitrate, isosorbide dinitrate, nicorandil, ivabradine | Nitrates and nicorandil are almost entirely anginal — the cleanest stable-CHD signal available here. |
| Post-heart-attack / secondary prevention | Aspirin + clopidogrel; add-on lipid ezetimibe, bempedoic acid | No ticagrelor/prasugrel in the list, so clopidogrel carries the antiplatelet signal. Ezetimibe and bempedoic acid are sharper add-on lipid signals than baseline statins. |
| Atrial fibrillation | DOACs (apixaban, edoxaban, dabigatran etexilate), digoxin, flecainide, dronedarone, amiodarone, sotalol | Digoxin, flecainide and dronedarone are fairly AF-specific; DOACs also index cardioembolic-stroke risk. |
| Cerebrovascular lean | Dipyridamole, clopidogrel | Dipyridamole MR is overwhelmingly cerebrovascular — weight it toward the STIA overlay, not CHD. |
| Broad — tie-breaker only | Statins, ACE inhibitors, ARBs, calcium-channel blockers, thiazides, beta-blockers | Standard cardiovascular care, dispensed so widely it dilutes the map. Use only as a tie-breaker between otherwise-tied postcodes. |
Warfarin, rivaroxaban, ticagrelor, prasugrel, bisoprolol, and ranolazine are not in the current list — several of them among England's highest-volume cardiac drugs. Worth confirming with the client/ops whether the extract can be widened, since warfarin/rivaroxaban would materially strengthen the AF layer and bisoprolol the heart-failure/rate-control layer.
Search-Listening Clusters
Six condition-anchored clusters. Each drug/brand becomes a keyword, and each condition gets an intent cluster. Run blended for scale, or split to match creative. Match cluster to campaign: prevention/"know your numbers" for awareness drives, cardiac arrest/CPR for the defibrillator work, heart failure and attack for patient-support and fundraising.
01. Heart Attack — Warning Signs & Act-Now
Description. The emergency-recognition window. People experiencing symptoms, or more often a family member watching them, trying to decide whether it is a heart attack. Heavy NHS 111 / 999 language and gender-specific symptom queries.
Why it matters. Highest urgency in the BHF build. This is where 'know the signs' creative, CPR and defibrillator messaging, and the emergency response line earn their keep.
02. Heart Failure — Symptoms & Living With
Description. The chronic management window. Breathlessness, fluid retention, fatigue, ejection fraction, stages of heart failure, and the day-to-day reality of living with the condition. Includes branded medication and device queries.
Why it matters. HF is one of the clearest QOF registers to target geographically, and the sacubitril/valsartan (Entresto) dispensing signal is the cleanest condition-specific fingerprint in the whole cardiovascular list.
03. Atrial Fibrillation & Arrhythmia
Description. The rhythm and stroke-prevention window. Irregular heartbeat, pulse checks, AF stroke risk, anticoagulation decisions, ablation, and living with palpitations. Strong overlap with the Stroke Association STIA layer.
Why it matters. AF drives a large share of preventable cardioembolic stroke. BHF's pulse-check and stroke-prevention campaigns fit here, and the DOAC dispensing signal gives a clean geographic anchor.
04. Prevention, Risk & 'Know Your Numbers'
Description. The awareness and prevention window. Blood pressure, cholesterol, heart age, QRISK, statins, lifestyle changes, and the routine checks that keep people out of the cardiac pathway.
Why it matters. BHF's biggest-reach campaigns sit here: blood-pressure drives, cholesterol awareness, and 'know your numbers'. The hypertension QOF register is the perfect geographic anchor for broad prevention messaging.
05. Cardiac Arrest, CPR & Defibrillators
Description. BHF's RevivR and public-access-defibrillator territory. People who want to learn CPR, find a defibrillator, train a workplace, or understand the difference between cardiac arrest and heart attack.
Why it matters. This is BHF's most distinctive brand territory: turning bystanders into lifesavers. It can be targeted nationally for training sign-ups, or geotargeted around mapped PAD locations and high-cardiac-arrest areas.
06. Medication & Secondary Prevention
Description. The NHS-seeded cluster. Searchers starting or managing the exact cardiovascular drugs from the fingerprint list, generic and brand. Query language runs on side effects, missed doses, interactions, and 'forever' questions.
Why it matters. Naming a specific cardiac medication means an active treatment moment. It corroborates the geographic overlay directly, so the two layers reinforce each other. Regulated territory, so creative stays clear of medical claims.
Live AMAP UK Segments
There is no off-the-shelf "heart failure" or "cardiac" segment in the UK cb_categories taxonomy. The condition specificity comes from the custom search-listening layer plus the NHS overlay, which is sharper than any pre-built pick. Standing UK health/age segments are live now for any leg running outside Meta on display/video/CTV/mobile.
| Segment | ID | Domain / Category |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Care | 20978 | Interest / Health and Medical Services |
| Senior Health | 20927 | Interest / Healthy Living |
| Health Services | 20724 | Interest / Health and Medical Services |
| Health Care and Physicians | 20975 | Interest / Health and Medical Services |
| Hospitals | 20841 | Interest / Health and Medical Services |
| Health & Pharma | 20891 | Interest / Pharmaceuticals, Conditions, and Symptoms |
| Pharmaceuticals, Conditions and Symptoms (All) | 20890 | Interest |
| Medical Health (All) | 21049 | Interest |
| Healthy Living (All) | 20787 | Interest |
| Smoking Cessation | 20849 | Interest / Healthy Living |
| Local News | 20751 | Interest / News and Politics |
| Retirement Planning | 20742 | Interest / Personal Finance |
| Age 45 to 59 | 666 | Demographics / Age |
| Age 60 to 64 | 667 | Demographics / Age |
| Age 65 to 74 | 668 | Demographics / Age |
| Age 75 to 84 | 669 | Demographics / Age |
Sources
- QOF cardiovascular prevalence (CHD, HF, AF, HYP, PAD, STIA) by GP practice — OHID Fingertips, National General Practice Profiles
- NHS dispensing, BNF Chapter 2 Cardiovascular System — OpenPrescribing / NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset
- UK heart and circulatory disease statistics — British Heart Foundation
Built by AMAP Data / Goldfish Ads. UK build, August 2026.
Two privacy-safe layers: real-time search-listening intent plus aggregate NHS geography (QOF registers + EPD dispensing). No health-condition inference, individual medical profiling, or cookies.