The Washington Post: Improving Women’s Heart Health and Cardiovascular Care
The Washington Post recently interviewed Martha Gulati, MD, director of Preventive Cardiology in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, on its live newsroom platform “Washington Post Live,” for a women’s heart health discussion during American Heart Month in February.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death among U.S. adults. Because 80% of heart disease cases are preventable, risk assessments can save lives.
Gulati, the Anita Dann Friedman Chair in Women’s Cardiovascular Medicine and Research at Cedars-Sinai, told “Washington Post Live” host Kathy Baird that while cardiovascular health is important for all women, women of color have a greater risk of developing heart disease.
“We need to be educating women about their risk and particularly for Black women,” Gulati told Baird. “Why haven’t we helped women understand what it means to have your heart assessed?”
She continued, “When people come for their well visit, why aren’t they leaving understanding their heart? Why aren’t they leaving knowing if they’re at risk? Because we now have great ways to assess risk, and yet most women will tell me they haven’t been assessed.”
To improve health equity, Gulati said the cardiology profession needs more women from diverse backgrounds.
“I think the more that our healthcare community looks like the people we care for, the better it will be,” Gulati said. “And we know that that’s how we create trust in the community, when we look like you ... We need to have more women at the table so that we can change the statistics, so we can change research, so that we can get more women into trials.”
Click here to hear the complete interview on “Washington Post Live.”