Overview
The purpose of the WISEWOMAN program is to extend preventive health services to achieve optimal cardiovascular health for participants ages 40-64 who are participants of the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program. The program helps participants understand and reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease and benefit from early detection and treatment. With health equity as a guiding principle, WISEWOMAN provides culturally-informed risk factor screenings and program services that are mindful of the social determinants of health.
Extensive scientific evidence links non-medical factors, including economic opportunities and systemic racism, with poor health outcomes and increased mortality rates. These factors, commonly referred to as social determinants of health, also explain long-standing disparities in cardiovascular health across racial and ethnic groups and between men and women.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the US and stroke is the 5th leading cause. In 2020, about 1 in 5 adults who died from CVD were younger than 65 years old. CVD accounts for about 1 in 3 deaths per year in women. In 2020, the age-adjusted CVD death rate among women was 183.9/100,000. Hypertension, which is the leading risk factor for CVD is prevalent among non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic women at 56.7% and 36.8%, respectively.
Activities encouraging women to become informed, active participants in CVD self-management by self-monitoring blood pressure with clinical support, maintaining a healthy diet, engaging in physical activity, and smoking cessation in addition to addressing social and economic factors and the effect of unfair opportunity structures to help program participants achieve the best health possible are a priority for the West Virginia WISEWOMAN Program.
The West Virginia WISEWOMAN Program screens for heart disease and stroke risk factors. The following 10 risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease are specifically targeted:
- Abnormal blood pressure (140/90 mmHg)
- Diagnosed hypertension
- High total cholesterol (≥200 mg/dL)
- Abnormal glucose (≥100 mg/dL fasting or ≥200 mg/dL non-fasting)
- Diagnosis of diabetes
- Tobacco use
- Body Mass Index (BMI) ≥ 25
- Eating less than 5 fruits or vegetables per day
- Exercising less than 150 minutes per week
Lifestyle Intervention
In addition to screening services, the WV WISEWOMAN program offers WISEWOMAN participants education and counseling services to decrease their heart disease, stroke, and other chronic disease risk factors by improving their nutrition habits and promoting physical activity and smoking cessation.
Healthy People 2030 Goals
- HDS-01: Improve cardiovascular health in adults
- HDS-02: Reduce coronary heart disease deaths
- HDS-03: Reduce stroke deaths
- HDS-04: Reduce the proportion of adults with high blood pressure
- HDS-05: Increase control of high blood pressure in adults
- HDS-06: Reduce cholesterol in adults
- HDS-07: Increase cholesterol treatment in adults
- HDS-D07: Increase the proportion of adults whose risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease was assessed