With over 31 women dying every day from heart disease in Australia every year, it is the number one cause of death. Awareness of this fact is very low, so the Heart Foundation runs a Go Red for Women (GRFW) campaign to promote important messages about women and heart disease.
Support us in 2010 to raise awareness of heart disease as a womens health issue. The following recources are available to assist you:
To order these above items, please contact the Heart Health Information Service on 1300 36 27 87. If you would like to get more involved or find out more, please contact us at gored@heartfoundation.org.au
Women and Heart Disease: cardiovascular profile of women in Australia Report
On 1 June 2010 the Go Red For Women campaign was launched at Parliament House Canberra with the release of the Women and Heart Disease: cardiovascular profile of women in Australia Report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and funded by the Heart Foundation.
This landmark Report describes the current impact of cardiovascular disease (CVD) on Australian women and dispels the myths that CVD is not an important health issue for women. It provides important baseline data for use in future policy and program development and tools for action in improving the prevention and treatment of CVD in women.
Some of the key findings from the report include:
- CVD is responsible for more than 29% of premature deaths in women.
- More than 90% of women have one risk factor for heart disease and 50% have two or three risk factors*. For example:
• from as young as 35-44 years, it is more common for women to be overweight or obese than to have a healthy weight,
• one in five women aged 20-29 years smoke daily
• almost 50% women to have high blood cholesterol
• 76% women are physically inactive.
If we can improve women’s awareness of heart disease then immediate gains could be achieved by encouraging more women to be heart healthy.
- On average, health care expenditure on females with CVD is 20% less per person than males ($261 and $322 respectively)** .
- CVDs are the second most expensive diseases in terms of health system expenditure on women, with $2682.8 million spent treating CVD in women in Australia in 2004-2005.
- There are some differentials in procedures between men and women admitted to hospital with heart disease. For example, women in 2006-2007 were only 70% as likely as men to receive a common treatment that helps restore blood flow to the heart – Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (or PCI). It is not clear if these differences are easily explained or whether they represent a disparity of care ***.
- Lower rates of in-hospital procedures for women were also noted in relation to coronary angioplasty (stenting), coronary artery bypass grafting, having a heart defibrillator implanted and carotid endarterectomy. In other areas of diagnosis and treatment the gender balance was even***.
Read the full Report (240pg) and summary bulletin (16pg).
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* Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2010 Women and Heart Disease Cardiovascular disease series no 34 Canberra 2010
** AIHW Healthcare expenditure on cardiovascular diseases 2004-05
*** AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database as quoted in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2010 Women and Heart Disease Cardiovascular disease series no 34 Canberra 2010