Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a leading cause of death among Canadian women,
and many are oblivious to this reality. Sex and gender differences and disparities
exist with respect to its development, identification, and treatment. In April, 2016
the Canadian Women's Heart Health Centre in partnership with the Heart and Stroke
Foundation of Canada hosted the first Canadian Women's Heart Health Summit in order
to identify strategies to address the challenge of heart disease among women in Canada.
The goal of the Summit was to establish a direction for Canadian women's heart health
by stimulating dialogue among engaged professionals and to devise collaborative strategies
to reduce sex- and gender-disparities in CVD prevention and management. A “Call to
Action” meeting followed the Summit and generated a consensus list of priority areas
for action. Recommendations included the creation of a “Women's Heart Health Alliance”
network to establish best practices in care; the development of a formal research
network, a specific research agenda, and approaches to prioritize research funding;
the identification of centres of excellence; advocacy for the development of appropriate
health policy and programmes to increase awareness among care givers and the public;
the transformation of clinical practice through knowledge translation, the development
and application of female-specific risk screening tools; and, the creation of new
models of care for women.
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