A new study shows that black women do not get as much preventive heart care as white women do.

It is already known that black women are more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke than white women. Why should this be? Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, shed new light on this worrying issue from a study of hormone therapy in a group of over two and a half thousand women nationwide.

All of these women had already been diagnosed with heart disease. Eight per cent of them were black and all were followed up for around four years. The black women were over twice as likely to both experience and die of a major cardiac event compared to white women. The researchers found that the black women were less likely to have good control of risk factors such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

However, this was not because black women are less likely to take their medication than white women. It seems to be because they are not being prescribed useful drugs like aspirin and statins. It's not clear if this neglect is being 'driven' by the doctor or patient but both sides should be more aware of the power of preventive medicine. Black women should be asking their doctors about diabetes screening, and blood pressure and cholesterol checks.

Source

Circulation on-line August 2003