Sex/Gender Differences in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention

Over the past decade, scientists, healthcare providers, the public, and policy makers have made substantial efforts to improve understanding of the sex/gender* differences in cardiovascular disease (CVD)† and to recognize the importance of heart disease in women. Federal and American Heart Association (AHA) initiatives to raise awareness and to reduce gender disparities in research and clinical care are listed in Table 1. There was a near doubling of the rate of awareness of heart disease as the leading cause of death in women between 1997, when the AHA launched its first campaign for women, and 2009; during that same period, the death rate resulting from CVD decreased by nearly half.2–4 The extent to which…