Wear Red Canada Day is back on Feb. 13 to help raise awareness for women\u2019s cardiovascular health and its differences versus male cardiovascular health.<\/p>\n
According to the organization, heart disease is the \u201cnumber one killer of women worldwide\u201d and the leading cause of \u201cpremature death\u201d in Canadian women.<\/p>\n
\u201cGlobally, 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,\u201d the Wear Red Canada website states<\/a>. \u201cWorse, considering that 80% of a woman\u2019s risk factors are within her control, heart disease is largely preventable.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr.\u00a0Colleen 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.<\/p>\n \u201c[Women who] were being turned away at emergency, with people saying, \u2018it\u2019s not related to their heart\u2019 and they would go back home. [After returning] to their clinician to say, \u2018something is wrong, and I think it\u2019s my heart,\u2019 the clinician would say \u2018you\u2019re too young\u2019 or \u2018you\u2019re too fit\u2019 and wouldn\u2019t investigate their heart.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u201cshow more evidence\u201d of heart disease in women.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s recognized all over the country.<\/p>\n