WISEWOMAN: CDC's Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Program for Women 35 to 64

Women aged 35 to 64 who take part in CDC's National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program can also have their risk of heart disease and stroke checked. That is the job of WISEWOMAN — the Well-Integrated Screening and Evaluation for WOMen Across the Nation program — which offers risk assessments, referrals for treatment, and support for changing daily habits.

What it does

WISEWOMAN helps participants understand and reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease and benefit from early detection and treatment. Its preventive services:

• assess each woman's cardiovascular risk factors;
• refer her to services that lower those risks through a better diet, more physical activity, quitting tobacco, and support for taking medicines as prescribed;
• address the social and economic factors that make healthy changes harder, including social support services that help participants complete them.

Health equity is its guiding principle: screenings and services are culturally informed and take account of the social determinants of health.

Who runs it

WISEWOMAN funds 35 recipients: 32 states, 2 tribal organizations and 1 U.S. territory.

The approach

The program aims to find the women at highest risk of cardiovascular disease and to improve how heart disease and stroke prevention reaches them — especially women with high blood pressure. Its objectives are better blood pressure control and smaller disparities in cardiovascular health. It helps build evidence-based strategies into health care systems and communities, such as:

• Team-based care for high blood pressure and other risk factors, bringing together the patient, their primary care provider, nurses, pharmacists and community health workers.
• Home blood pressure monitoring, with tools and resources that help clinicians get patients measuring regularly.
• Pharmacist support, with tools to help patients take their blood pressure medicines as directed.
• Skill-based training to help participants eat better and move more.
• Tobacco cessation, referring smokers to quit lines and other resources.
• More lifestyle programs in communities, all evidence-based.

CDC has published a summary of how these core strategies were carried out in Years 1 and 2 (2018–2020), with an evaluation of its successes.

What it has reached

Services differ from one WISEWOMAN program to another, but all are designed to encourage heart-healthy changes that last a lifetime.

Sources

Based on "About WISEWOMAN," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a work of the United States government in the public domain.