Woman Changing the World honoree uses family history to inspire others to take their health to heart

Elisabeth Rohm has held a lot of titles in her life. She's a Hollywood actress with more than 80 television and film credits. She's a director and writer. But her roles as health advocate and philanthropist may be closest to her heart.

"I was raised by a woman who taught me I needed to think about others," she said. "Mom encouraged me to use my voice to help others. When we go through tough times, we need to be a beacon for other people. When the cracks happen, the light comes in."

Rohm knows about tough times. She lost her mom, aunt and grandmother to heart attacks when they were each in their 60s. Those losses now motivate her to share her family's story to encourage other women to prioritize their heart health.

For more than a decade, she has been a national volunteer for the American Heart Association and a strong advocate for CPR, which she said may have saved her family members if it had been performed on them. Rohm also shares her personal story and inspires others to prioritize heart health at AHA CPR training events, Go Red for Women forums and luncheons, and the Red Dress Collection Concert.

Because of her extensive volunteer work and advocacy for heart health, Rohm is the recipient of the Woman Changing the World Award, which is given annually to a leader in their field or community who drives "significant change and outcomes that help forward the mission of the AHA." She will be honored May 2 during the AHA's online National Volunteer Awards ceremony, which begins at 6 p.m. Central and is open for public viewing.

"By sharing her heartbreaking family history with cardiovascular disease, Elisabeth's powerful advocacy and unyielding work on our behalf has benefitted countless lives and moved our mission forward," said American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown. "I am personally grateful for her dedication to the cause and her willingness to work with us side by side on so many fronts."

For Rohm, working with the AHA has been rewarding in multiple ways.

"The American Heart Association has been a collective family to me for the past 14 years," she said. "This award is a little bit of recognition in my relentless pursuit to not give up on the shared values I have with the AHA."

Some of those priorities include fundraising for cardiovascular disease research, outreach and education. She also is vocal about women knowing their family health history and taking steps to reduce their risks. As mom to 16-year-old daughter Easton she knows how essential it is to guide the next generation.

"It's important to make heart health a family dialogue and use the past as a way to advocate for a better life in the future," she said. "My mom is gone. I carry that torch now and know things may have been different if she changed her health habits or made different choices while she was alive."

In her professional life, Rohm's acting credits include playing Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn in the Emmy Award-winning television series Law & Order and appearing in Oscar-nominated films American Hustle and Joy. In the past few years, she has added television director to her resume.

Rohm also does philanthropy work for several organizations and is the co-founder and host of The RESPECT Project, which provides online and in-person cultural programming that celebrates diverse opinions and experiences. She's already planning to do more volunteering once Easton starts college in a couple of years. That work includes the AHA, which she values because of its strong support of women.

"I approach the American Heart Association and heart disease as a daughter," she said. "I'm just one voice in a chorus of people advocating for other women to slow down, get rest and take charge of their health. It may seem selfish, but it's the very thing we need to do, and it's what we need to teach our children so they can grow up learning to prioritize their health, too."