Page 2877 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 11 October 2022
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national average, which is 49 people per 100,000. This equates to approximately two deaths per day in the ACT and it is 25 per cent of deaths overall.
However, the ACT is leading the way in comparison nationally on the lowest age standardised rate of hospitalisation from coronary heart disease, with 29 per 10,000, compared with a national average of 55 per 10,000. Where the prevalence of cardiovascular disease is similar for males and females, the hospitalisation data shows that women are far less likely to go to hospital than men.
While we may be leading the way in coronary heart disease admissions, the ACT is no longer leading the way in the hospital admission rate for cardiovascular disease. The statistics have increased significantly since 2018, when the rate was 123 cardiovascular admissions per 10,000, and today we are at 160 admissions per 10,000 people. This is still better than the national average. However, it does indicate the need for further education and awareness raising both for health professionals and for the community.
In Australia, only 55 per cent of women recognise heart disease as personally relevant, and only 39 per cent of women believe heart attacks are personally relevant. Given that the prevalence of the disease is virtually the same for men and women, this research points to a clear need to raise awareness in the greater community that heart disease and heart attack conditions and symptoms are just as likely to impact anyone in the community.
Currently, the lack of awareness means that women often do not go to hospital fast enough during a heart attack and are far less likely to have treatment for a heart attack. This leads to poorer outcomes for women. Even after an acute event, women are less likely to complete cardiac rehabilitation, less likely to have regular follow-up care, and less likely to take medications as directed or return to normal daily activities as quickly as men.
In addition, research shows that survival rates for women at one year and five years after a heart attack are far worse compared to those for men. Women have double the chances of dying one year after a heart attack than men.
Questions need to be asked. Why is it that women are far less likely to attend hospital if they are experiencing a heart attack symptom? More must be done to understand the prevalence of the disease in the community, hospitalisation rates, and to identify risk factors and the gendered nature of those risk factors.
According to the ABS, in 2018, nine in 10 adult women had at least two or more traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease and more than one in four had more than four risk factors. In addition, current datasets that help to identify risk factors exclude gender-specific risk factors for cardiovascular disease. These factors include pregnancy-related risk factors such as pre-eclampsia or gestational diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, premature menopause, and female patterning of some heart-related diseases.
Associate Professor Zaman, an interventional cardiologist and leading researcher, said that these indicators are often ignored—a clear sign that more needs to be done in
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