Go Red for Women is a major international awareness campaign dedicated to the prevention, diagnosis and control of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women. Around the world cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke, is the number one killer of women and is also a major cause of disability. Each year CVD causes 9.1 million deaths among women globally. It kills more women each year than all cancers, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined. Yet most people don’t know this. Despite this huge death and disability burden CVD is a women’s health issue which is under-researched, under-funded, under-treated and under-prioritized. The good news is that most heart disease & stroke is preventable. Knowing about the most common causes, risk factors, signs and symptoms is the first step in fighting this disease and saving many women’s lives.

With this context, Eminence as a member of World Heart Federation has initiated Go Red for Women activities in the summer of 2012 to create a strong, energetic movement together for raising awareness about this health issue. The Non-Communicable Diseases Forum (NCD-F) as the national platform for NCDs in Bangladesh also provided its support in this awareness event.

With this objective Eminence and NCD-F organized the following activities

Fight Back Heart Diseases: A fact sheet was prepared based on the information fact sheet from WHF and number of copies were printed and distributed.

Reaching the Policy Makers: A package of information document was tied in red ribbon with a red flower and was distributed among the women members of the national parliament (MP). Till date 36 MP’s has been reached through this activity.

Bridging the Gap: An effort was made to make a bridge among the people in need and the available service and in this regard a MoU was made with a local hospital through which they provided low cost cardiac screening services to 100 eligible women from slums. Among the 50 patients seven is being taken for further screening and was taken under treatment as initial testing were positive for cardiac complications.

Life with a Broken (!) Heart: An informal chit chats with heart diseases survivors and caregivers was organized at a community setting. This event gave the caregivers an idea about how a person can live a life with a broken (!) or diseased heart.

Go Red for Women: Since heart diseases affects more women in our country, during this period of time Eminence distributed red flower and Fight Back Heart Diseases document to women passing different significant places of Dhaka city. The places which were covered are the National High Court, The Medical University, University of Dhaka, total 10 corporate houses and six (6) readymade garment factories.

In addition to these activities the “Go Red for Women Global Statistics Toolkit: the burden of cardiovascular disease in women” presentation – initially prepared by World Heart Federation – was adapted and presented among stakeholders. Copy of the presentation can be found here.

To know more about CVD and Women’s health you can download the Factsheet. Moreover some reports, guidelines and documents are as following:

•  10 facts about gender and tobacco, World Health Organization, 2010
•  A Call to Action: Women and Peripheral Artery Disease, Alan T. Hirsch and al., AHA Scientific Statement, Circulation, 2012
•  Awareness Raising on Women and CVD, Research work performed in the framework of the EuroHeart project, 2009
•  Challenges in the prevention and reduction of women's tobacco use in Argentina, O'Neill Institute, 2010
•  Effectiveness-Based Guidelines for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Women—2011 Update”, AHA updated guidelines co-sponsored by the World Heart Federation, 2011

•  Evidence-Based Guidelines for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women, AHA Guideline, 2007
•  Gathering real-life insights toolkit, WHF toolkit to help you gathering case studies and show the real-life impact of CVD
•  Gender empowerment and female-to-male smoking prevalence ratios, Sara C Hitchman, Geoffrey T Fong, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2011
•  Gender, women, and the tobacco epidemic, World Health Organization, 2010
•  The Global Atlas on Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Control, World Health Organization in collaboration with the World Heart Federation and the World Stroke Organization, 2011

•  Heart disease is lead cause of death in pregnancy, Sue Hughes, the Heart.org, 2012
•  Non-communicable diseases: A priority for women's health and development, World Heart Federation, the International Diabetes Federation, the International Union Against Cancer and the Framework Convention Alliance, 2011

•  Red alert on women's hearts: Women and cardiovascular research in Europe, Research work performed in the framework of the EuroHeart project, 2009
•  Role of Cigarette Smoking and Gender in Acute Coronary Syndrome Events, Michael Howe and al., American Journal of Cardiology, 2011 (abstract)
•  Women and health: today's evidence tomorrow's agenda, World Health Organization, 2009
•  Women and NCDs, speech of Michael J. Montoya, 2010  
•  Women and the Rapid Rise of Noncommunicable Diseases, World Health Organization, 2002
•  Women and the tobacco epidemic: Challenges for the 21st Century, World Health Organization, 2001
•  Women are a powerful solution to the NCD crisis, Jill Sheffield and Nalini Saligram, the Huffington Post blog, 2012

    To know more about global activities you can go to

•  World Health Organization: Women, gender and health
•  International Network of Women Against Tobacco
•  Taskforce on NCDs and Women’s Health
  

An Initiative by:

Technically Supported by: