Heart health is not the same for everyone. Almost all women in precarious or vulnerable situations combine factors cardiovascular risks. This is the conclusion of an association which has launched an operation to bring this public back into a course of care.
“Acting for the Hearts of Women” launched the “Bus du Cœur” in September, a mobile dispensary offering medical examinations and exchanges with doctors and gynecologists to women in vulnerable situations. It was the social services of the towns concerned that offered these women in a situation of precariousness financial, medical, social, or isolation to participate in screening.
“The observation is edifying”
So far, 1,065 women aged 15 to 90 have been received and their data, anonymized, has been analyzed by a team of researchers from the Lille University Hospital’s research and innovation department, led by Patrick Devos, statistician, and by Prof. Claire Mounier-Véhier, co-founder of “Acting for the Hearts of Women”.
“The observation is edifying”, sums up this cardiologist. In total, 43% of the women in the study have a hypertension uncontrolled and more than a third of women discover it during screening. Nearly one in five women also has severe high blood pressure, a critical risk factor for the cardiovascular accident.
Overweight or obesity
” The Covid and confinement have also been there, with consequences for an already weakened population, ”notes the cardiologist. Thus, 68% of the women received are in overweight or obese. Another aggravating consequence of Covid: 67% of women report feeling in a state of stress, 26% have a syndrome depressive. In total, 90% of the women examined “cumulate at least two cardiovascular risk factors”, according to the cardiologist.
And yet, they are insufficiently taken care of: in the population of screened women, 11% no longer have doctor. 70% of women with at least two cardiovascular risk factors are not followed by a cardiologist and/or a vascular doctor. The “heart bus” has planned a 2022 tour of 20 cities in France to screen at least 4,000 women in vulnerable situations.