On October 7th, 2004, a workshop was held on the topic ‘Challenges for a healthy heart for European women’ at the 7th European Health Policy Forum in Gastein, Austria. The objective of this workshop was to explore the breadth of issues facing the newly enlarged Europe in the promotion and management of cardiovascular health for Europe's 228 million women.
The event featured speakers from a wide array of perspectives from across Europe the practicing cardiologist, the gynaecologist, the pharmaceutical industry, the EU policymaker, the patient advocacy group, the health economist, the health promotion organisation and the health management academic were all represented. The mix of speakers made for a lively discussion. Yet all speakers relayed similar strong messages: heart disease is the major killer of women in Europe, awareness of its importance is dismally low, and the time is ripe for focused efforts to reduce the burden that heart disease poses to women and society in general.
The workshop was organized jointly by the European Heart Network, the European Health Management Association and Bristol-Myers Squibb. This partnership, which builds upon key areas of work for all three organisations, is symbolic of the need to bridge across different sectors of health to achieve best results and demonstrates the potential of such collaborations.
This report presents a synthesis of the workshop discussions. We hope that the messages it contains will be disseminated as widely as possible in order to stimulate further debate and lead to concrete actions to help secure healthy hearts for all European women.
Contents
Introduction
The Issues
1. Facts and figures
2. CVD in women: a neglected threat
3. Women are different
4. Poor evidence leads to poor
clinical decisions
5. CVD is mostly preventable
6. A considerable economic burden
The Challenges
1. Raising awareness
2. Improving the evidence base
3. Raising standards of care
4. European level action
5. National level action
Conclusions
Calls to action
References
