PAKISTANI WOMEN’S HEART HEALTH CAMPAIGN ADVANCES

One year since it was launched under the direction of World Heart Federation President Shahryar Sheikh, the Go Red for Women national campaign in Pakistan is raising Pakistanis’ awareness that cardiovascular disease is Pakistani women’s greatest health threat.

The need was great and remains so.

“Cardiovascular disease in Pakistani women is a silent epidemic,” Dr Sheikh said. “In 2005, it accounted for 22% of the deaths of Pakistani women of all ages, according to the World Health Organization. Yet fewer than half of Pakistani women know that it is their leading cause of death.”

Dr Sheikh added, “At the same time, Pakistan is experiencing a surge in one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease – overweight and obesity. In 2005, 31% of Pakistani women 30 years old or older were overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organization. In 2015, the figure will be 41%.”

Another factor that convinced him of the need to launch the campaign was the vastly disparate mortality trends from cardiovascular disease for men and women. “In 2001, cardiovascular disease killed fewer than 440,000 Pakistani men but nearly half a million Pakistani women,” he said. According to the Pakistan Population Census Organization, in 1998 there were 108.5 Pakistani men for every 100 Pakistani women.

Collaborative effort

Dr Sheikh is running the campaign in collaboration with the Pakistan Cardiac Society, of which he is a Past President, and Heartfile, a nongovernmental organization whose President and Founder, Sania Nishtar, is the current Chair of the World Heart Federation’s Women’s Expert Panel.

Although the awareness raising begins with teaching about cardiovascular disease’s position as the biggest killer of Pakistani women, it doesn’t end there. Dr Sheikh also wants to inform about how women’s symptoms of heart attacks differ from men’s and about the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease. He also wants Pakistani women to talk with their health care providers about heart health.

Two-pronged approach

There are two major elements of the campaign. One is directed at the medical community. The other is directed at the general public.

Toward the medical community, Dr Sheikh plans to deploy a “project team” of 15 cardiologists to teach other physicians about women’s heart health.

At publication time, Dr Sheikh was tentatively scheduled to brief the team in the city of Lahore about how to carry the campaign throughout the country. His plan calls for the team to provide workshops and short courses to physicians in Lahore and eight other cities: Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Hyderabad, Multan, Sukkhur, Bhawalpur, Karachi, Quetta.

Each physician who receives the special training from the project team will be encouraged to run “cardiology screening camps”. There, women could be screened for, and be provided information about, the causes, prevention and control of cardiovascular disease.

For the general public, there is a media campaign, with a particular emphasis on reaching women in colleges, universities and religious centres.

Seeking tangible improvements

Since the launch, Dr Sheikh has been a tireless advocate, addressing recent meetings of the Pakistan Cardiac Society at the national and district levels, a conference of Pakistan family physicians in Lahore in February and numerous other groups.

“Pakistan was the first country in South Asia to have a Go Red for Women national campaign,” he said. “The challenge now is tangibly to improve the heart health of Pakistan’s women. I’m hopeful that the campaign will make a beneficial mark.”

SOURCE:www.world-heart-federation.org