Supporting Go Red For Women

Founded by a group of just six cardiologists about a century ago, the American Heart Association (AHA) has now grown into the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. The organization unites over 35 million volunteers and supporters, as well as another 3,000 employees, under the shared focus on improving cardiovascular health and awareness for everyone across the world. 

However, roughly two decades ago, the AHA faced a challenge, finding that historically, men have been the subjects of the research done to understand heart disease and stroke, which has been the basis for treatment guidelines and programs. Because women have been largely ignored as a specific group, their awareness of their risk of this often-preventable disease has suffered.

This led to an oversimplified, distorted view of heart disease and risk, which has worked to the detriment of women. At the time in 2004, cardiovascular disease was already claiming the lives of 500,000 women a year, yet the AHA found that women were not paying attention to this, even dismissing heart disease as an older man’s condition. 

In truth, it is quite the opposite, as cardiovascular disease kills more women than all forms of cancer combined and yet only 44% of women recognize that cardiovascular disease is their greatest health threat. So, in order to dispel this myth and raise awareness for women’s heart health, the AHA created Go Red for Women, a passionate, emotional, social initiative designed to empower women to take charge of their heart health.

Go Red for Women encourages awareness of the issue of women and heart disease, and also action to save more lives. The movement harnesses the energy, passion and power women have to band together and collectively wipe out heart disease. It challenges them to know their risk for heart disease and take action to reduce their personal risk. It also gives them the tools they need to lead a heart healthy life.

So far, in the two decades the movement has existed, Go Red for Women has used its funds to help women by offering educational programs, advancing women’s understanding about their risk for heart disease and providing tools and motivation to help women reduce their risk to protect their health. For example, the Go Red Heart CheckUp has engaged more than 2 million women to learn their risk of heart disease.

The Arkos team is proud to support the Go Red for Women movement, as we encourage women of all ages and backgrounds to take action to better protect their cardiovascular health. In fact, Dr. Tanya Sibrava, Executive Vice President of Medical Affairs at Arkos, serves on the Executive Leadership Team for Go Red for Women.

With over thirty years of medical experience across various healthcare positions, Dr. Sibrava is committed to advancing women’s health through awareness and communication, in order to provide a more seamless care experience, resulting in better health outcomes for women of all ages, around the world.

Thanks to her diversified medical history, sporting time as an EMT, as well as working with both inpatient and emergency psychiatry, and time as a case manager for children services, Dr. Sibrava brings a holistic approach to women’s health. With a background in osteopathic medicine, Dr. Sibrava works under the philosophy that there’s more to good health than just the absence of pain or disease, which rings especially true when it comes to the heart. 

On top of Dr. Sibrava’s involvement with Go Red for Women, Arkos is also proud to sponsor the Phoenix Go Red for Women event, where we will have a strong focus on the education, access, and equity to Hispanic women at risk of stroke through the R.A.P.I.D.O. campaign.

R.A.P.I.D.O is an acronym aimed to raise awareness of stroke symptoms in the Hispanic community, designed with the intention of replicating the popular FAST mnemonic that exists in English. FAST, which stands for Face drooping, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty, Time to call 911 is usually simply translated to Spanish, but in doing so, it loses its quick memorization aspect, which decreases its effectiveness. 

In comparison, R.A.P.I.D.O stands for Rostro caído, Alteración del equilibrio, Pérdida de fuerza, Impedimento visual, Dificultad para hablar, Obtenga ayuda rápido. This acronym is expected to help increase Hispanic awareness of telltale stroke symptoms, in which only 58% of surveyed Hispanic adults knew, ranking last among ethnicities. 

At the Phoenix Go Red for Women event, together with the AHA and the R.A.P.I.D.O campaign, Arkos is setting out to empower women of the Hispanic-Latino community to better understand their risk of stroke. Through education of stroke signs and symptoms, immediate management, and modifiable risk factors, we at Arkos want women to have more control over their cardiovascular health, to both decrease the chance of heart disease, and improve overall peace of mind. 

Even outside of the Phoenix event, Arkos will continue to support the Go Red for Women movement, and the AHA, in hopes of uniting women across the country under the common goal. As we believe that we can only truly begin to defeat the number one cause of death amongst women, when the unique barriers are removed, and women are given more access to the tools necessary to lead a heart healthy life.