Prepared
by Diane Carlisle
Florida Hospital
601 East Rollins
Street
Orlando, Florida
32803
Here
at Florida Hospital in Orlando, our motto is, “Improving Tomorrow. Innovating
Today.” As we innovate today, let us review the number one killer of women in
the United States. Heart disease kills one in every three women, killing a
woman every 60 seconds and reaching a death toll of over 500,000 women each
year, higher than the total number of deaths caused by all cancers combined (Go
Red For Women, n.d.). Today in the United States, an estimated 43 million women
are affected by heart disease, and coronary heart disease costs the United
States $108.9 billion each year (Heart Disease Fact Sheet, 2015). Regardless of
these staggering numbers, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
cancer research expenditures exceed those of heart disease research by 350
percent (See Appendix A).
Other
research expenditures which exceed those of heart disease are stem cell
research, vaccine related research, digestive diseases research, health
services research, and HIV/AIDS research (National Institutes of Health, 2016).
This is staggering. It is disheartening to realize grants, contracts, and other
funding mechanisms do not consider women’s heart issues as a priority when it
comes to the future and improving upon healthcare services where it is needed
the most.
The
introduction of the iHeart Women Campaign is intended to provide a voice
to women across the nation by working along with sister organizations such as
The American Heart Association (AHA) and their Go Red for Women Campaign,
designed to “harness the energy, passion and power women have to band together
and collectively wipe out heart disease” (Go Red for Women, n.d., para. 2).
Because women have unique factors contributing to a higher risk of heart
disease, from multiple pregnancies and contraception to hormone treatment after
menopause (Menopause Hormone Treatment, 2013), it is prudent we provide
advocacy in the form of education, preventive care, and further research into
other risk factors contributing to women’s heart health, namely pressures in
society which negatively impact women’s body image, a leading contributor to
unhealthy eating disorders which impact the risks for women developing heart
disease as a result of elevated triglyceride levels (Health Consequences of Eating
Disorders, n.d.).
Another
advancement we envision in education and preventive care is to seek out
institutional biases and to bring about awareness to unfair practices that lead
to more fatalities for women than men due to misdiagnosed heart attacks (Doshi,
2015). No longer will it be tolerated for a woman to be sent home after
presenting with atypical symptoms of a heart attack, and told she is
experiencing stress or that her tests show no signs of heart attack or stroke
when a male patient presenting similar symptoms is admitted into the hospital
for further study.
As
advocates for women’s healthcare, we must ensure that women remain relevant in
the narrative when reporting statistics and making assessments on appropriate
care and diagnosis of heart disease and the reduction of misdiagnoses, in many
cases relating to misguided notions that women do not experience heart attacks
as do men. A greater educational effort must be considered in reaching the goal
of improving tomorrow. With this campaign, not only will we produce a strategy that
will improve upon tomorrow, we will have produced a sustainable path for future
heart health for women then and beyond.
We
seek to target stakeholders in the medical arena as well as academia in hopes
to reach partners who realize the need to keep women relevant and not buried in
the numbers which do not help shed light on the differences between men and
women in research studies across the nation. The AHA, the NIH, and the American
College of Cardiology (ACC) are organizations that have the means to assist in
our campaign to produce a positive outcome for women across the nation.
References
Doshi, V. (2015, October 26).
Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/heart-disease-women/412495/
Go Red For Women. Facts About Heart
Disease in Women - (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.goredforwomen.org/home/about-heart-disease-in-women/facts-about-heart-disease/
Health Consequences of Eating
Disorders | National Eating Disorders Association. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/health-consequences-eating-disorders
Heart Disease Fact Sheet. (2015,
November 30). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fs_heart_disease.htm
Menopause Hormone Treatment, Heart
Risk -- Go Red For Women. (2013, October 16). Retrieved from https://www.goredforwomen.org/know-your-risk/menopause-heart-disease/menopause-hormone-treatment-heart-risk/
National Institutes of Health.
(2016, February 10). Retrieved from https://report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx
Appendix
