Welcome to the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus. A Top Ten Medical School, our departments, centers and institutes work with the University of Colorado Hospital, Children's Hospital Colorado Barbara Davis Center.

The Center for Women's Health Research is taking the lead in focusing vital research on Cardiovascular Disease, which comprises an important part of the Center's initial research agenda.

• Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in women in Colorado and the nation.

• Cardiovascular mortality is declining in men but not women.

• Women develop heart disease at an older age than men and have a lower chance of survival after a heart attack or stroke (33% of women, compared to 25% of men, will die within a year of heart attack).

• More than 500,000 women die annually of CVD, more than the next seven causes of death combined.

• The incidence of heart disease is 33% higher in African American women than in white women.

• Stroke is the leading cause of serious long-term disability and the 3rd leading cause of death in women. Cardiac risk factors shown to increase risk of stroke include valvular heart disease, myocardial infarction, coronary artery disease, and heart failure.

Against this backdrop, only 46% of women 25 years of age and older identified heart disease as the leading cause of death in women, according to a 2003 American Heart Association national study, and only 38% of women in those age groups said their doctors had ever discussed heart disease with them. Because the prevalence of CVD increases with age among women, CVD will become an even more serious public health issue as the Baby Boom generation ages and the percentage of older women increases in the U.S.