| African American Women
African American Women are Least Likely to Know Their Heart Attack Risk Factors While cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of all American women, it is African American women, who, by all accounts are at greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than any other ethnic group. Studies show African American women are also the least likely to know of their own heart attack risk factors.
In Chapter 11 of Heart to Heart, Barbara Robinson thought she had made the significant lifestyle changes in time to protect her health. She stopped smoking, became a jogger and changed her diet. She and those around her would not think of her as having any heart attack risk factors.
Heart to Heart subject Barbara Robinson of Washington, DC
Then one day at work as an executive assistant in suburban Washington, DC, at age 51, Robinson recalls in the book, "I was at work when the pain started. It felt like indigestion at first, and I kept hitting my chest trying to knock away the pain."
Know Your Family History of Heart Disease
Family histories of heart disease, diabetes, smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, physical inactivity, and overweight/obesity are all greatly prevalent among African Americans and are major risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including stroke.
Yet only half of African American women surveyed knew their falling into one or more of these categories put them at high risk for heart attacks, strokes or some other form of cardiovascular disease.
The American Heart Association warns: - Although women of color and of low socioeconomic status are disproportionately affected by heart disease—their death rate was 28 percent higher for black women than for white women in 2005.
- Only 31 percent of black women and 29 percent of Hispanic women knew that heart disease was their greatest health risk, compared to 68 percent among white women.
- Amazingly, doctors were even less informed. Among primary care physicians, only eight percent knew that more women than men die each year from cardiovascular disease.
- Few women recognize the warning signs or symptoms of heart disease and stroke, which may be more subtle than those exhibited by men.
- Lack of overall awareness often results in less aggressive and sophisticated diagnosis and treatment by women's health care providers, with worse outcomes.
Hispanic Women and Heart Disease
The American Heart Association says Hispanic women's heart disease risk is comparable to the heart disease risk level of Caucasian women who are about ten years older. This is counter to the long-held belief that Hispanic women have less heart disease than Caucasian women.
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