Wear Red Canada Day is back on Feb. 13 to help raise awareness for women’s cardiovascular health and its differences versus male cardiovascular health.

According to the organization, heart disease is the “number one killer of women worldwide” and the leading cause of “premature death” in Canadian women.

“Globally, cardiovascular diseases affect 1 out of 3 women, yet women everywhere are understudied, underdiagnosed, under-treated, and under-aware when it comes to their cardiovascular health,” the Wear Red Canada website states. “Worse, considering that 80% of a woman’s risk factors are within her control, heart disease is largely preventable.”

Dr. Colleen Norris, professor and associate dean at the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta, says one of the problems in Canada mainly stems from patients being neglected at urgent care facilities.

“[Women who] were being turned away at emergency, with people saying, ‘it’s not related to their heart’ and they would go back home. [After returning] to their clinician to say, ‘something is wrong, and I think it’s my heart,’ the clinician would say ‘you’re too young’ or ‘you’re too fit’ and wouldn’t investigate their heart.”

Norris has always been interested in heart health in women, she said, and joined Wear Red Canada to express her knowledge and concerns, as well as to bring awareness and “show more evidence” of heart disease in women.

Wear Red Canada has been marked for five years; Norris says it started with a gathering of people in Ottawa and has grown into a giant initiative that’s recognized all over the country.

Further information on Wear Red Canada can be found at the event website.

​​Listen to the full CFWE Interview below with Dr. Colleen Norris: