The Heart & Stroke Foundation is putting a face – three of them, actually – to an issue it has advocated against for years: the inequities between women and men when it comes to the diseases the foundation combats.
Two thirds of clinical research trials on heart disease and stroke focus on men, which has created a massive knowledge gap for healthcare providers when it comes to addressing these conditions in women. In 2019, a third more women than men died of stroke and every 16 minutes, one woman died from heart disease – and these are outcomes that the Heart & Stroke Foundation hopes to correct with efforts like its latest campaign, “Beat Health Inequity.”
“This is not a brand new discovery, and nor is this the first time we’ve spoken publicly about this issue,” says Stephanie Cox, VP of marketing strategy, digital and communications for the non-profit. “We’ve been working for many years to address the inequities that exist, both behind the scenes and also with awareness campaigns to bring more visibility. Progress has certainly been made, but heart disease and stroke remains the number one cause of premature deaths for women. Clearly, the issue is not solved and more work needs to be done.”
The campaign was developed with creative partner Sid Lee, and is anchored by a lead video titled “The Anthem” that features segments of conversations with three women – Michelle, Megan and Garima – who had first-hand experience being misdiagnosed and impacted by the knowledge gaps that exist. Each of the women also feature in their own individual video that more thoroughly reveals their own story.
“We didn’t need to create these stories. They’re told by these women who were all misdiagnosed and unaware,” explains Ariane Poitras, group account director at Sid Lee. “There is definitely a blind spot, and that’s the main insight of the campaign: how do we attack and correct it? Women, in general, don’t even know what our symptoms are. That is what we’re trying to uncover.”
The campaign is also of benefit for the women who participated, Poitras adds, because it gives them a voice to speak out against an issue that directly impacted their own lives. “These women felt dismissed and unheard,” she says. “We gave them all a voice through this campaign.”
The Foundation is armed with plenty of data on the consequences of the knowledge gap, but the most sobering statistic for Cox pertains to how often the conditions are misdiagnosed.
“Half of women who experience heart attacks have their symptoms go unrecognized. That’s one in two who aren’t getting diagnosed when they’re having a heart attack, when obviously, time is everything,” she explains. “It feels like we can really move the needle there and make a huge impact by ensuring more women are saved and fewer suffer unnecessarily by catching it earlier.”
Ultimately, the inequity stems from an imbalance in the research: for a long time, Cox clarifies, two thirds of that research was conducted on men. “Women are not men. Our bodies are not the same and neither are our lives,” she elaborates. “Change starts with making sure the research is equally representative of women and men, so we can learn about women’s unique needs as it relates to these diseases.”
The hope is that, by continuing to raise awareness of that problem, Heart & Stroke Foundation will drive more women to demand better – as well as drive researchers to close the gap in understanding between how the diseases act with women and men.
“It’s a long process. These things take time and it is going to take consistent commitment from ourselves and the partners we work with to ensure we really move that needle to close the gap, get the knowledge out there and make sure all women receive the care that they deserve,” says Cox.
