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An alarming 45 percent of women don’t know that heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States.

At this year’s American Heart Association Scientific Meeting in Orlando, Florida, Dr. Holly Andersen, director of education and outreach at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and medical advisor to the Women’s Heart Alliance (WHA) will present results of the first survey of its kind to address women’s heart health awareness.

The presentation will be made at a news conference on Sunday, November 8 at an 8:00 a.m. press conference in the News Media Center.

Every minute, a woman dies from heart disease, and heart disease kills more women in the U.S. than all cancers combined. The Women Speak up About Personalized Heart Health Awareness Survey shows that an alarming 45 percent of women don’t know it’s their number one killer. Even though women make up more than half of the U.S. population, for the last 50 years, the treatment of women’s hearts has been largely based on medical research on men.

To understand women’s perspectives on heart disease, the WHA commissioned GfK to conduct a survey of more than 1,000 women in the U.S. Despite it being a top concern among women, most women are not talking about heart disease with friends or family (76 percent never or rarely talk about it) and are not bringing up the topic with their doctors (46 percent never bring up the subject with MDs). Nearly half of the women surveyed (49 percent) expect that their doctor will bring up the topic. In a similar survey conducted among primary care physicians and cardiologists, they too report that most women do not bring up the topic during visits.

The survey also found that despite this being a woman’s number killer, few (27 percent) can name a woman with heart disease and even fewer (11 percent) can name a woman who has died from it.

“Lack of awareness, communication and personalization of women’s heart disease is a deadly combination,” said Dr. Andersen.

“All women and those who love them need to start talking and taking action against this killer. All women should get heart checked.”

NewYork-Presbyterian

NewYork-Presbyterian is one of the nation’s most comprehensive healthcare delivery networks, focused on providing innovative and compassionate care to patients in the New York metropolitan area and throughout the globe. In collaboration with two renowned medical school partners, Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, NewYork-Presbyterian is consistently recognized as a leader in medical education, ground-breaking research and clinical innovation.

NewYork-Presbyterian has four major divisions: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is ranked #1 in the New York metropolitan area by U.S. News and World Report and repeatedly named to the magazine’s Honor Roll of best hospitals in the nation; NewYork-Presbyterian Regional Hospital Network is comprised of leading hospitals in and around New York and delivers high-quality care to patients throughout the region; NewYork-Presbyterian Physician Services connects medical experts with patients in their communities; and NewYork-Presbyterian Community and Population Health features the hospital’s ambulatory care network sites and operations, community care initiatives and healthcare quality programs, including NewYork Quality Care, established by NewYork-Presbyterian, Weill Cornell and Columbia.

NewYork-Presbyterian is one of the largest healthcare providers in the U.S. Each year, nearly 29,000 NewYork-Presbyterian professionals deliver exceptional care to more than 2 million patients.

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