Women’s HeartAdvantage Offers Education, Awareness
This isn’t your husband’s heart disease. Or your father’s. Or even your brother’s. This is women’s heart disease, the No. 1 killer of females in this country, claiming nearly half a million women’s lives each year.
The tricky part is getting you to realize that.
“A lot of women tend to put themselves last when it comes to health,” says Nancy Gere, director of Communication and Marketing for Community Hospital. “They say, ‘Oh, I felt a little dizzy, but I’ve got to pick up the kids and get them to soccer practice.’”
Enter Women’s HeartAdvantage, a national campaign being adopted by Community Hospital in early February to increase women’s awareness of the risk factors and symptoms of heart disease.
Consider this recent study of Monterey County women. The random sampling of 500 women ages 40–70 revealed that 83 percent were at-risk for a first heart attack. But only 29 percent thought they were at-risk.
Why the Disconnect?
Maybe they didn’t recognize the risk factors — high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, physical inactivity, obesity, smoking, or a family history of heart attacks or heart disease — as potential precursors to heart disease.
Perhaps they were unaware that the warning signs of a heart attack include not only the traditionally male symptoms of chest pain, shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, and pain in the arm, but also unexplained fatigue, sweating, dizziness, nausea, or a sense of impending doom.
And finally, maybe information about heart disease wasn’t forthcoming from their primary care doctor, the person from whom 60 percent of the women in the study said they would seek such education.
CommunityHospital ’s Women’s HeartAdvantage focuses on strategies designed to address all of that — outreach, awareness, and campaigns to educate doctors. “The whole purpose of the program is to speak to any lack of knowledge and to educate women,” says Gere, co-chair of the hospital’s Women’s HeartAdvantage program.
That educational push will include:
- A community health fair
- Presentations to women’s groups — Soteria Karahalios, MD, cardiologist
- Women’s HeartAdvantage hotline — (831) 655-(LIFE)5433
- Online self-assessment tools
“This is the number-one killer of women,” Gere says. “If you’re a woman and you haven’t talked with your doctor, it’s time to do that now. We also encouage women to call the Women’s HeartAdvantage hotline for more information or to speak with a Community Hospital wellness nurse about their risks.”