Our Work

Fight the Ladykiller

A National Campaign to Raise Awareness for Women’s Heart Health

WHA Co-founder Barbra Streisand on Capitol Hill with Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins and Director of the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, Janine Austin Clayton, M.D.

About Fight The Ladykiller

Nearly every 80 seconds, a woman dies from heart disease, and heart disease and stroke kill more women than all cancers combined. Survey data shows that an alarming 45 percent of U.S. women ages 25-60 don’t know it’s their number one killer. Even though women make up more than half of the U.S. population, for the last 50 years, the treatment of women’s hearts has been largely based on medical research done on men.

In October 2014, the Women’s Heart Alliance launched Fight the Ladykiller®, a nationwide campaign to build greater awareness and knowledge of the women’s heart health epidemic and gender differences. Specifically, the campaign works to:

  1. Encourage women to talk to their healthcare providers and empower them to #getHeartChecked
  2. Encourage the medical community to proactively address the screening, diagnostic and therapeutic differences and talk to patients and peers about women’s heart health
  3. Move Congress and federal agencies to action on funding women’s heart health research