Women are speaking more openly about periods, pregnancy, perimenopause, and menopause, bringing once-taboo topics into public conversation. Clinicians and health systems need to now connect these experiences with what the science is telling us about how they influence a woman’s cardiovascular health throughout her life.

A woman may see a gynecologist for her irregular periods, a therapist for her depression, and a primary care doctor or cardiologist for her high blood pressure. Each clinician may focus on an important concern. But what is often missing is a shared understanding of how those concerns fit together and what that means for her lifelong cardiovascular health. 

A narrow lens has too often been applied to women’s health, defining it as care of reproductive organs and pregnancy. Reproductive health is essential to a woman’s well-being, but women’s health is much broader. We now know that menstrual patterns, pregnancy, and menopause can provide important information about cardiovascular health. Our approach to care should reflect this.

These missed connections matter because cardiovascular disease is the greatest threat to women’s health today. Approximately 1 in 3 deaths in women are due to cardiovascular disease every year. Yet fewer than half of women knew that heart disease was the leading cause of death for women, according to a 2019 survey performed by the American Heart Association. 

As a preventive cardiologist and epidemiologist, I study how women’s life events shape cardiovascular disease risk. We now know that unique signals of cardiovascular risk in women can be identified years and decades before heart disease develops. The challenge is making sure that this information changes the care women receive.

This is what led the American Heart Association to bring together the American........

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