It’s time to make women a priority. For decades, women have been needlessly dying because research and treatment of cardiovascular disease has primarily been focused on men. And we’re fighting to change that.

This week, Rep. Herrera Beutler and Rep. Roybal-Allard introduced a Congressional Resolution about women’s cardiovascular disease. If passed, this resolution would recognize women’s cardiovascular health as a critical health care priority and be an important first step toward achieving heart equity for women across the United States. 

We applaud Rep. Herrera Beutler and Rep. Roybal-Allard for working across the aisle, and leading the way toward real public policy change. We are hopeful that in an era of divided government, women’s cardiovascular disease can be a unifying issue — and urge members of Congress to sign on as cosponsors. We ask you to call your member of Congress and tell them to support this resolution.

The proposed resolution will:

• Recognize the vital importance of decreasing the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in women.
• Promote increased awareness and education on symptoms of heart disease in women, including a public awareness initiative to establish best practices for identifying and treating cardiovascular incidents in women.
• Call for sex-specific cardiovascular disease research, including an economic impact study to ascertain the health care system costs of heart disease in women.
• Further critical policies and take real action to fight inequality in the care of heart disease.

We’ve brought our message to the halls of Congress (read our op-ed in The Hill and our recent letter to Congress), college campuses and scientific conferences.

It’s time Congress prioritizes women’s heart health by cosponsoring and passing the Heart Equity Resolution. And this is just the start.

Read the full resolution text here.