During her visit to Atlanta today, First Lady Jill Biden stopped at the Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) Women’s Heart Healthy luncheon to promote a new initiative to encourage more research for women’s health.
The White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research highlights the importance of women’s health research with the federal government, private sector and philanthropic sectors to close research gaps and improve women’s health.
The first-of-its-kind initiative consists of executive departments and agencies across the federal government to deliver concrete recommendations to advance women’s health research. The initiative will take a targeted approach to engage scientific and philanthropic communities to develop partnerships to advance women’s health research.
“Women are more likely than men to die after a heart attack and Black women are more likely to die from heart disease than women of any other race,” Biden said.
Celebrating its 15th year, MSM’s Women with Heart Initiative raises money to provide student scholarships, promote healthy lifestyles and increase community awareness of heart health and cardiovascular disease. Its Women’s Heart Healthy luncheon is its flagship fundraiser during their Heart Healthy Week, which is held the second week in February every year.
Biden entered the Ocean’s Ballroom of the Georgia Aquarium to a sea of women wearing red to celebrate heart health.
During the program, heart attack survivors gave their stories of how they unexpectedly experienced a heart attack and were not paying attention to the signs before it was almost too late.
“When you think about eliminating health disparities, you cannot think about that without thinking about heart disease,” said Valerie Montgomery Rice, President and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine. “Heart disease is the number one killer of all men and women, but we see a disparity when it comes to Black heart versus white heart disease, whether it’s male or female and we want to narrow that gap so that we can increase the life expectancy for all people.”
Biden said too many medical studies have focused on men and left women out of the conversation. This includes medical textbooks and dosage recommendations that are often based on men’s bodies and do not necessarily apply to women.
“These gaps are even greater for communities that have historically been excluded from research, especially women of color and women with disabilities,” Biden said.
Click here to learn more about the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Women the Heart Initiative.
