Heart Disease is blindly taking a toll on women.

• 9,000,000 ... The number of women who are currently living with Cardiovascular Disease
• 500,000 ... The staggering number of women who lose their life each year to Cardiovascular Disease
• 40 ... The percent of all female deaths in America that occur as a result of Cardiovascular Disease
• 13 ... The percent of women who know Cardiovascular Disease is their greatest health threat

Numbers don’t lie, and the story needs to be told.

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) ranks first among all disease categories in hospital discharges for women. CVD includes diseases of the heart and blood vessels, such as coronary heart disease and stroke. One in 2.5 women will die of heart disease or stroke, compared with one in 30 from breast cancer. CVD takes more female lives than the next seven causes of death in women, as well as all forms of cancer combined. In fact, coronary heart disease is the number 1 killer of women over age 25; while stroke is the number 3 cause of death, and is the leading cause of serious, long-term disability for women of all ages.

Black and Hispanic women face the highest risk of death from heart disease and stroke. African-American and Mexican-American women have higher heart disease and stroke risk factors than white women of comparable socioeconomic status. Alarmingly, they also have the lowest risk factor awareness of any racial or ethnic group according to an American Heart Association survey.

The concept of cardiovascular disease as a ‘have-or-have-not’ condition has been replaced by the American Heart Association with the idea that CVD develops over time and every woman is somewhere on the continuum.

Numbers don’t lie, and the story needs to be told.