National Women's Heart Health Day Statistics

Heart disease is the number one killer of American Women.

Every year, an estimated 485,000 American women die of cardiovascular disease (heart disease & stroke), more than twice the number who die of all forms of cancer combined.

An estimated 240,000 women die annually of heart disease, five times the number who die of breast cancer.

Women suffer nearly half (49 percent) of the 480,000 heart disease deaths that occur each year.

More women than men die of heart attacks within the first year of their first heart attack (44 vs. 27 percent).

More women than men will suffer a heart attack within four years after their first heart attack (20 percent vs. 16 percent).

Heart attacks kill nearly 21,000 women under the age of 65, and over 29 percent of them are under the age of 55.

One in eight women age 45 and over has had a heart attack.

Black women have a 33 percent higher death rate from coronary heart disease than white women, and a 77 percent higher death rate from stroke.

Coronary heart disease is a major risk factor for stroke, which kills over 87,000 women each year.

An estimated nearly 1 million Americans are currently living with heart defects. Some defects occur more commonly in women and can remain undetected until well into adulthood, putting their lives at risk.

Statistics from The American Heart Association and The Woman's Heart Book by Fredric J. Pashkow, M.D. and Charlotte Libov, founder of National Women's Heart Health Day.