The public is invited to participate in a June 30 national conversation about women’s heart health hosted by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Translational Research Institute. The event will be live-streamed and is open to anyone who wants to attend in person or join online and via text messaging.
Called Our Community, Our Health, the discussion will include a panel with UAMS experts in women’s heart health and an Arkansan with a family history of fatal heart disease. The event will begin with a reception a 4:30 p.m. and the town hall will be 5 – 6 p.m. at the UAMS Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, 629 Jack Stephens Drive, Room 1207. For those who prefer to view and participate online, login at http://bit.ly/1YbqKfM. Questions may be submitted via Twitter at #OCOH or #Womenshearthealth.
Moderator
Conducted in partnership with the University of Florida, the event is designed to engage the public, especially medically underserved communities, in conversations about important health and research topics. One of three women in the United States die each year from cardiovascular diseases and stroke, and an estimated 44 million women in the United States are affected by cardiovascular diseases.
“Many communities have been left out of the conversation about health research, so we have chosen this unique town-hall format to share information in an unscripted conversation with the public,” said Kate Stewart, M.D., M.P.H., who directs the Translational Research Institute’s Community Engagement Program.
The conversation will be moderated by Rhonda Mattox, M.D., medical director of the Arkansas Minority Health Coalition.
Jean McSweeney, Ph.D., R.N., who made international headlines in 2003 with her groundbreaking discovery of women’s unique heart attack symptoms. The professor and associate dean for research in the College of Nursing is focused on these symptoms as well as women’s unique risk factors for heart disease. She recently highlighted these risk factors in the American Heart Association’s premier journal, Circulation, and hopes it will raise awareness among women’s doctors so that they may modify their practices to improve health outcomes.
Christina Pettey, Ph.D., R.N., a fellow of the American Heart Association and assistant professor at the UAMS College of Nursing. Her research has focused on examining the causes of cardiovascular health disparities and identifying ways to eliminate them.
Kimberly Moore, of Little Rock, who lost her mother and sister to cardiomyopathy, a chronic disease of the heart muscle. Moore and a brother have also been diagnosed with heart disease. Moore has cardiomyopathy as well as arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD). She has a pacemaker and keeps a defibrillator close by.