TOOLKIT LAUNCHED: KEY STATISTICS TO HELP HEALTH-CARE PROVIDERS INCREASE AWARENESS OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASECardiovascular disease is on the increase in women worldwide, yet this fact is relatively unknown. There is also a distinct lack of data on the subject hence an urgent need to build awareness. The World Heart Federation has therefore, launched a toolkit to help health-care providers highlight this burden and advocate for change. The toolkit is available online to members through the World Heart Federation website. It is designed to inform physicians, nurses and midwives, and other health-care providers about the high and under-recognised prevalence of cardiovascular disease in women. Women’s biggest killerCardiovascular disease killed 8.6 million women in 2005, the last year for which a global figure was available according to the World Health Organization; this was nearly half of the total 17.5 million deaths caused globally. More women died of it than all cancers, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined. Eighty per cent of the deaths were in low- and middle-income countries. Yet it is not among the diseases mentioned in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, even though surveys have shown that public awareness on women’s risk is extremely low. “All health-care providers – be they gynaecologists, other kinds of specialists or general practitioners – need to be more aware,” said Sania Nishtar, Chairwoman of the World Heart Federation’s Women and Heart Disease Expert Panel. “They, in turn, need to make their patients more aware. This is especially true in the low- and middle-income countries where most heart attacks and strokes occur. What does it behove a healthcare provider to protect a woman’s maternal health alone if she is at extremely high risk of a heart attack or stroke because she is overweight or obese, doesn’t exercise, smokes and eats unhealthy foods? Health-care providers need to look at the whole patient, and that includes being duly considerate of the cardiovascular health of women.” “Healthcare Providers Advocacy Toolkit”Launched on International Women’s Day (8 March 2008), the “Healthcare Providers Advocacy Toolkit” is a PowerPoint slide presentation for use by our member organisations, so that their leaders and members can advocate in favour of more attention to women and cardiovascular disease. The slides can be used either as such or can be extracted from the presentation to suit local needs and be adapted to any given presentation on the subject. The data has been extensively researched from WHO and other reliable sources.
World Heart Federation President Shahryar Sheikh has already used the toolkit to brief healthcare providers in Pakistan. World Heart Federation’s Scientific Advisory Board Chairman, Sidney Smith, also used it during a session at the Japanese Circulation Society Congress. In both cases, the World Heart Federation was able to adapt the toolkit to make it more relevant to their audiences. Besides educating about the high prevalence of the disease among women and the different ways that a heart attack can present itself in women, the toolkit also highlights that women are under-treated and under-represented in clinical trials. The toolkit is available to members on the World Heart Federation's web site. | |||||||
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