Time for a change of heart – The 2019 Women and Heart Disease Forum

The 2019 Women and Heart Disease Forum was held in Sydney on 19 June, presented by the National Heart Foundation in collaboration with The George Institute for Global Health.

The 2019 Women and Heart Disease Forum brought together leaders in clinical care, research, community health leaders and women who have experienced heart disease to describe issues and develop strategies to improve women’s heart health. The event identified emerging opportunities to impact on women’s heart health trajectories using a life course approach, as well as assess the need for a gender and sex perspective in relation to the experience of heart disease in women as well as to research and cardiology professions.

The one-day forum highlighted emerging research and clinical advances from across medical disciplines, to shine a light on the prevention, treatment and management of heart disease among women.

Professor Robyn Norton AO, Principal Director of The George Institute for Global Health gave the keynote speech: Change of Heart: a move to sex and gender disaggregated cardiovascular research and practice across the life course.

The George Institute’s Dr Amanda Henry, Dr Clare Arnott and Dr Rosemary Wyber also gave presentations on hypertension in pregnancy, spontaneous coronary artery dissection and on rheumatic heart disease.

Heart disease is the leading killer of Australian women, but it continues to be under-recognised, under-researched, and under-treated.

It can also be an invisible killer – often going unnoticed and not openly talked about. In Australia, heart disease continues to take the lives of 22 women every day – with nearly three times as many women dying from heart disease as from breast cancer.