Starting this month, WomenHeart is bringing together WomenHeart Champions virtually to receive continued and enhanced training. Building upon our annual Science & Leadership Symposium, which otherwise trains new volunteers to be support network leaders and community educators, this curriculum was similarly developed with the Mayo Clinic. It will refresh current Champions, provide updated information on heart disease in women and equip them to provide support, education and advocacy to women with heart disease in an increasingly virtual world. We are thrilled to have over 100 Champions engaging in the sessions and earning badges of completion.

WomenHeart submitted comments this month to the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) with recommendations for research priorities in the coming year. We recommended that research focus on missed and delayed diagnosis of heart disease and other conditions that commonly impact but too often are overlooked in women; on how better to diagnose and treat conditions that present during or soon after pregnancy; on understanding why women may opt out of clinical trial participation early in a trial or choose not to participate at all; on health disparities among LGTBQ+ adults; and to consider ways to incorporate patient stories into research.

WomenHeart is engaged in an ongoing effort to raise awareness of how common it is for women with heart disease to experience misdiagnosis. A new resource was created specifically for patients who want to take action to help improve the diagnostic journey for women with heart disease. And we are working on a related video-storytelling project that will be coming soon! These efforts follow our report released last spring, in partnership with the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, which presents ideas for patient-centered research that address issues of missed and delayed diagnosis of heart disease in women. That was the result of a collaborative meeting of experts funded by a Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award.