Women and heart disease: cardiovascular profile of women in Australia

Fast facts


• Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs)—a highly preventable and treatable group of diseases—are a major threat to the health of Australian women. But there is a lack of awareness of this threat.


• More than one in three women who died in 2006 did so as a result of a cardiovascular disease. 


• Coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke and other heart diseases (including heart failure) are the three leading causes of death among women. 


• About two million women (one in five) have cardiovascular disease. About 226,000 of these women have CHD, 168,000 have had a stroke and 176,000 have heart failure. 


• CHD and stroke are in the top 10 causes of poor health and disability among Australian women. 


• Most women (91%) have at least one modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and half of all women have two or three. 


• Most of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease are known, and many of them can be changed. For example, smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity and high blood pressure can be modified and their burden reduced. 


• Many of these risk factors are already common among young females—from as young as 35–44 years, it is more common for females to be overweight or obese than to have a healthy weight; and one in five of those aged 20–29 years smoke daily. 


• CVDs are the second most expensive diseases in terms of health system expenditure on women, with $2,682.8 million spent treating CVD in women in Australia in 2004–05. 


Source: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare