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(Circulation. 2004;109:561.)
© 2004 American Heart Association, Inc.

Focused Perspectives

Cardiovascular Disease in Women

Are There Solutions?

Augustus O. Grant, MD, PhD; Alice K. Jacobs, MD; Carolyn Clancy, MD

From Duke University Medical Center (A.O.G.), Durham, NC; the Boston University Medical Center (A.K.J.), Boston, Mass; and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, Md.

Correspondence to Dr Augustus O. Grant, Duke University Medical Center, Box 3504, Durham, NC 27710. E-mail grant007@mc.duke.edu

Key Words: Focused Perspectives • prevention • women • cardiovascular diseases

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

This issue of Circulation is devoted to an important problem facing us today. Despite American Heart Association (AHA) initiatives over more than a decade aimed at educating women about their risk of heart disease, the efforts of other organizations committed to women’s health, and the recent "The Heart Truth" program of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, in which the American Heart Association is an active partner, most women still do not internalize their risk from cardiovascular disease and thus do not act to reduce it. We report in this issue the third of a series of AHA surveys of women’s awareness, performed every 3 years over the past 9 years. In fact, there has been an increase in the number of women who have heard that heart disease ranks as the No. 1 killer of women. However, the percentage that actually rank heart disease as their greatest personal health threat has only increased minimally from the 7% reported in the first survey, and remains far too low at 13%. Dr Wenger’s Focused Perspective (see p 558) reminds us that cardiovascular disease affects not just older women but those in their 40s and 50s as well. Many cardiovascular problems, including atherosclerosis, begin in young adulthood, and prevention must begin at least between the ages of 20 and 30 to have its greatest impact. Furthermore, despite a recent focus on women’s health in the research community, Dr Wenger points out that there are many as-yet unanswered questions that need . . . [Full Text of this Article]