Website, Privacy, and Accessibility

NHLBI Web Maintenance Team

Privacy Policy

Read the Open Government Plan from the Department of Health and Human Services, our parent Agency. 

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

This graphic notice () next to a link on the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s website indicates that the link leads to another site that is not a federal government website. 

NHLBI links to external websites to supplement the information found on the NHLBI's website. However, NHLBI cannot guarantee the accuracy of information provided on external websites. 

Linking to a non-federal website does not indicate an endorsement by NHLBI of the sponsors or of the information and products presented on the website. 

You will be subject to the external website's privacy policy when you leave NHLBI's website.

The web pages of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) have been designed to make them accessible to all users and compatible with screen readers and other assistive technologies. However, with the continual innovations in technology, it is possible that you may encounter problems when accessing certain pages.  

For plug-in information refer to Notes on Viewing & Downloading Files (plug-Ins), the page describes notes on accessing various file formats such as HTML, ASP, MS Word, PowerPoint & Excel Viewers (Windows), CSV, PDF, TXT and Zip files.

DISCLAIMER: The NHLBI website screen or document appearance may vary depending on your hardware/software configuration. Different operating systems, browsers, screen resolution settings, and specific software plug-ins (such as Adobe Pro vs. Adobe Reader, or PowerPoint Viewer vs. PowerPoint MS Office) will affect display results. In addition, document properties assigned by the NHLBI website may be overridden by customized settings within your software applications (such as those on Internet Explorer’s Internet Options tab). Font issues such as warnings about embedded fonts may be resolved by choosing more flexible 'default font' options. Other influences on accessibility and usability results may be the use of different models and versions of screen readers or other assistive technology devices. Therefore, in an effort your resolve issues in an expedient manner, it is prudent to take note of the specificities requested when reporting accessibility issues.

If you need an alternative means of accessing any information on the NHLBI website, please contact us through our public inquiries mailbox at NHLBI Web Maintenance Team.

If you encounter a problem and would like to report it or to obtain additional help accessing information on any NHLBI web page, please contact the page owner, if that information is available. Otherwise, please contact the NHLBI Web Maintenance Team, which will forward your request to the appropriate page owner.

It would be helpful if you can be as specific as possible when describing the accessibility issue(s) and the information which you are seeking. Please include the following information in the description area of the issue request:

• Operating system
  (e.g. Windows 7, 8, 10 etc.)
• Type of accessible adaptive technology & version
  (e.g. JAWS 15, NVDA, Window Eyes 9.2, ZoomText, etc.)
• Browser type & version
  (e.g. I.E. 11, Firefox 38.2, Google Chrome 47.0, etc.)
• Identify the page URL and page TITLE (e.g. HTML link for file(s) and the specific file if not a web page; link page and PDF file
  http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-pro/resources link page http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/sites/www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/cholesterol-in-adults.pdf)
• Location of issue:
  (specify if the issue is with a specific page, slide, specific section of the file or the entire file; PDF file pages 31-34 data tables)
• Objective:
  (e.g. retrieve info, complete form, tabular data, set data filters, etc.)  
• Description of issue:
  (e.g. form fields are not labelled, error messages unclear, table data inaccessible, alt text missing, inconsistent navigation, pop-up window-keyboard trap, or etc.) 
• Provide your contact information
  (e.g. email address, phone, etc.)

For example, in the body (description) of the email, include the following:

I am running Windows 7 and utilizing JAWS 15.0 in conjunction with browser I.E. v11.

I have accessed PDF file http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/sites/www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/cholesterol-in-adults.pdf  from link page http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-pro/resources.  I am unable to distinguish the column headers for the data tables on pages 31-34 of the PDF file. I need to extract the nucleotide bonds showing AT and GC for the study conducted in calendar year 2007.

As noted above, due to the continual technology advances in software applications, accessibility features may be affected. By providing precise information, we can emulate the issue and expedite a resolution specific to your needs. For example, if the issue pertains to a 200-page file with 100 or more tables, the remediation effort could be extensive; however, if a specific objective is provided (e.g. tables on pages 31-34), we can expedite the process and provide the user with an explicit workaround by extracting individual tables for remediation and thereby addressing your immediate objectives.