Heart Disease Prevention in Young Women

D ow nloaded from DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.115.018352 2 We have come a long way in the past 50 years toward reducing death and disability from cardiovascular diseases (CVD). And yet, as articulated by Wilmot KA et al. in this edition of Circulation,1 we still have a long way to go, especially for young women and some racial/ethnic groups. These new findings highlight the value of looking “behind the curtain ” at health data, in particular teasing apart age- and sex-related outcomes. Wilmot KA et al. now build on our understanding of CVD mortality by highlighting recent trends in sub-populations, including young women, and they are troubling. These investigators examined mortality data for U.S. men and women 25 years and older between 1979 and 2011 using U.S. National Vital Statistics data that focused on coronary heart disease (CHD).1, 2 ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes were used to determine the underlying cause of CHD deaths. Analyses of mortality data within three age groups (<55 years, 55 to 64 years, and 65+ years