WomenHeart Launches First National Campaign to Raise Awareness of Heart Failure in Women

WomenHeart, the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease, announced this week it will launch the first national campaign to raise public awareness about heart failure in women. The coalition says heart failure is now the leading cause for hospitalizations for women 65 and older. And, although women make up half of all hospital admissions for heart failure, they only comprise 25 percent of participants in heart failure studies.  

WomenHeart’s campaign, which is sponsored by Amgen and supported by grants from St. Jude Medical Foundation and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, will not only educate and support women who have or are at-risk for heart failure, it will also make recommendations for gender-specific research on the condition. According to an article on the campaign in Medical News Today, women with heart failure have a greater risk of depression and suffer reduced quality of life compared to men. 

Between now and November 23, WomenHeart is conducting an online study of its 35,000 members to better understand the experiences of women with heart failure. Of those members, the coalition says approximately 11,000 are women with heart disease.  The results of the survey will help inform the patient education arm of WomenHeart’s campaign, which will launch in April 2015. 

You can learn more about WomenHeart and their national campaign by reading the full article here.