{"id":10787,"date":"2022-03-07T09:11:31","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T08:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world-heart-federation.org\/?post_type=news&p=10787"},"modified":"2022-08-01T18:04:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T16:04:11","slug":"international-womens-day-gender-equity-time-to-act","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/world-heart-federation.org\/news\/international-womens-day-gender-equity-time-to-act\/","title":{"rendered":"International Women’s Day – Gender Equity: Time to Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

This editorial was authored by WHF President Prof. Fausto Pinto and was first published in the International Journal of Cardiovascular Sciences<\/a> on 16 July 2021.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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This issue of the International Journal of Cardiovascular Sciences comes at a time when the medical and scientific community are finally addressing an important issue that has been somehow neglected over the years. That is gender equity when dealing with health and scientific issues. This relates not only with the medical differences between genders in many clinical conditions, but also how gender equity is still an enormous issue when we are dealing with health care forces, payments, access to leading positions and many other aspects,(1, 2) including citations in high-impact journals.(3)<\/p>\n

Scientific societies have developed several initiatives in order to address some of these issues. At the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) several initiatives were organized over the years, including creation of a working group on \u201cWomen in Cardiology\u201d, support of the \u201cLeadership for women\u201d Program organized by Oxford University, where several ESC female leaders were supported. Some Associations created specific committees, such as the Interventional Cardiology Association (EAPCI Women Committee) that was created in December 2013.(4) On International Women\u2019s Day (8th March 2011), the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) launched a call for action to reduce the gender disparities that are currently resulting in women receiving second rate cardiovascular (CV) care.5 Studies published online on that day in the European Heart Journal (EHJ),(6, 7) the official journal of the ESC, showed a persistent under-utilisation of guideline recommended treatments for heart disease in women compared to men. Unfortunately not much has changed over the last years.(8)<\/p>\n

In the USA, American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) have also developed very relevant initiatives and projects related with gender inequities and some of them have really helped to increase the awareness on the issue, such as the program \u201cGo Red for Women\u201d,(9) as well as helping shaping formal decisions to help promoting gender equity.<\/p>\n

In a remarkable study (systematic review) from ACC\u2019s Cardiovascular Disease<\/a> in Women Committee, they concluded female physicians have better patient outcomes compared with their male peers, while female patients are less likely to receive guideline-recommended care when treated by a male physician.(10) While care disparities can be attributed to multiple factors, they may relate, in part, to the differences in how cardiovascular disease presents in women vs. men, the underrepresentation of female subjects in clinical trials and the lack of women\u2019s health training in U.S. medical education.(11) To combat these findings, the study authors proposed three major recommendations, that I underline here:<\/p>\n

1. Increasing Gender Diversity in the Physician Workforce<\/strong><\/p>\n