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VIDEO: Survey results reveal lack of awareness of heart disease risk among women

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ORLANDO, Fla. — Holly S. Andersen, MD, director of education and outreach for the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and scientific advisor to the Women’s Heart Alliance, spoke with Healio.com at the AHA Scientific Sessions about a national campaign launched to reduce the number of women dying from heart disease. In this video, Andersen offers sobering statistics on how unaware and passive women are on the topic of the heart disease, the stigma that discourages discussion and how physicians can create a dialogue with patients on “a disease that is largely preventable.”

Andersen spoke of a survey launched to inform the campaign, which revealed the following:

• Only 45% of female respondents knew that heart disease was the most frequent cause of death among women. Women who were unaware of the risk were more predominantly younger, undereducated and non-white.
• The majority of women (70%) had never spoken with their primary care providers about heart disease. Conversely, only 39% of PCPs reported speaking with their patients about it, placing a greater focus on topics including weight loss and breast cancer.
• Close to 40% of women reported having ever felt that there was a problem with their heart, yet only 5% called emergency services. Thirty-two percent of women said they would wait and hope for their symptoms to go away.

Andersen encouraged physicians to engage their patients in discussion of heart disease during office visits. “We need to do a better job as a medical community … and we need to be talking to our female patients about heart disease and making them care about their heart risk,” Andersen said. “[We need to be] taking measures to prevent it, because largely this is a preventable disease.”