December 9, 2021Open Access
Why We Need Specialised Centres for Women’s Hearts: Changing the Face of Cardiovascular Care for Women
Key Result
Specialised Women's Heart Centres provide a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to address ongoing global disparities and sex-specific gaps in cardiovascular care for women.
Structured PICO
P
Population
Women with or at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD)
I
Intervention
Specialised women's heart centres (WHCs)
Specialised women's heart centres are proposed as a comprehensive approach to address persistent global disparities and suboptimal outcomes in cardiovascular care for women.
Limitations
- No regulatory requirement to register WHCs, making it difficult to ascertain global numbers
- Lack of established certified training programs in women's cardiovascular health
- No evidence to date demonstrating a direct improvement in cardiovascular outcomes related to the establishment of WHCs
Abstract
Although cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality in women globally, cardiovascular care for women remains suboptimal, with poorer outcomes than for men. During the past two decades, there has been an incremental increase in research and publications on CVD in women, addressing sex-specific risk factors, symptoms, pathophysiology, treatment, prevention and identification of inequities in care. Nonetheless, once women have manifested CVD, they continue to have increasingly worse outcomes than men. An approach to addressing these global disparities has been the worldwide establishment of specialised centres providing cardiovascular care for women. These women's heart centres (WHCs) allow a comprehensive approach to the cardiovascular care of women across the lifespan. The purpose of this article is to define the need for and role of these specialised centres by outlining sex-specific gaps in CVD care, and to provide guidance on components within WHCs that may be considered when establishing such programmes.