Mary Cushman, M.D.’89, M.Sc., University Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and co-director of the Vermont Center for Cardiovascular and Brain Health, was quoted in a Yahoo Health article about lack of awareness that heart disease is the #1 killer of women. The prevalence and deadliness of heart disease for women specifically has been a public health problem for a long time—and it’s getting worse.
The prevalence and deadliness of heart disease for women specifically has been a public health problem for a long time—and it’s getting worse.
Despite some real progress in science’s understanding of how heart disease manifests in women, women are still disproportionately dying. An American Heart Association survey published in 2020 found that a growing number of women thought it was breast cancer, not heart disease, that killed the most women; knowledge about the symptoms of a serious cardiac event also declined. What makes the lack of awareness about women’s heart disease so perplexing is the fact that scientists have known about their unique risk for years.
What makes the lack of awareness about women’s heart disease so perplexing is the fact that scientists have known about their unique risk for years.
Dr. Cushman, a cardiologist at the University of Vermont who co-authored the 2020 AHA study on public perceptions of women and heart disease, said she recently spent a day walking around campus, trying to engage students on heart disease.
“I just feel like younger people aren’t thinking deeply about these topics,” she said. “With the students that we talked to, it was really apparent that they just didn’t know. You look at wonderful programs, like Go Red for Women, but where are they? Are they in the right places? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer.”