Many women think that heart disease primarily affects men - that is not true. In fact, more women die of heart disease than men. It is the #1 killer of women, regardless of race or ethnicity.
A majority of women in Northern California have one or more risk factors for heart disease but do not consider themselves to be at risk for a heart attack. In addition, most women are not aware that heart disease is their greatest health threat, despite statistics that show more women than men have died each year from heart attack since 1984.
We invite you to visit Sutter Health's new cardiovascular Web site loaded with information about heart disease prevention, treatment, and services available through our not-for-profit network of hospitals and physicians. Go to hearts.sutterhealth.org.
Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa and the not-for-profit Sutter Health network recently completed a study to better understand women’s knowledge and attitudes concerning heart disease as part of a major program called Women's Heart Advantage. Our research of women aged 40-70 revealed the following: (for additional research findings click here)
- 54% of women are at least 20 pounds overweight
- 47% of women have a family history of heart attack
- 30% of women have high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol
- 15% of women smoke.
The goal of Women's Heart Advantage is to help women understand their risk, identify the warning signs and learn how to live a heart-healthy life.
Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa and our physicians will be offering a number of outreach activities to help women live a heart-healthy life. Specifically, our program includes ongoing physician and nurse education; educational materials for women available in physicians' offices; outreach to women through health fairs, their employers and community lectures; focused information available in our community publications; and outreach through public media to bring awareness of the disease in women.
As part of our system-wide clinical initiative around treatment of heart attack, Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa also has established clinical protocols based on scientific evidence of the most effective treatments. So we may continually improve the care we provide, we will collect data and monitor outcomes of both men and women treated in Sutter hospitals throughout Northern California.
Learn more about our clinical initiatives:
AMI initiative (Acute Myocardial Infarction) click here
CHF initiative (Congestive Heart Failure) click here
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