A powerful new PSA released by the Women’s Heart Alliance (WHA) and its new campaign, Fight the Ladykiller, features Academy and Grammy Award winner Jennifer Hudson urging women to fight heart disease by understanding their risk and getting their hearts checked (#getHeartChecked).
The PSA comes as a new survey from the WHA shows that women are not talking about the disease or making a personal connection to it.
The PSA premiered in front of a live audience in New York City at a Hearst Master Class event hosted by journalist Gayle King with guests Barbra Streisand and doctors C. Noel Bairey Merz and Holly Andersen.
“Heart disease is a woman’s number 1 killer, yet we aren’t personalizing the disease. Our research shows that even if we are aware of this fact, we don’t know other women with the disease or those who have died from it,” said Barbra Streisand, co-founder of the Women’s Heart Alliance and executive producer of the new PSA. “We’ve got to make the connection that heart disease is a villain. And we need to give women and the men who love them ways they can Fight the Ladykiller.”
“We can make a bigger difference in reducing the deaths among women from heart disease by fostering conversations between women and their doctors. Let’s make sure the women in our lives get heart checked,” adds Ronald O. Perelman, co-founder of the Women’s Heart Alliance.
The new PSA calls on women to #getHeartChecked — a routine screening that can identify women who have or are at risk for heart disease. Ninety percent of women have at least one risk factor for heart disease.
For Hudson, who stars in the PSA, heart disease prevention, particularly among African American women, is especially important. "African American women are at particularly high risk for heart disease — nearly half are at risk. The problem is, only 1-in-5 thinks she’s personally at risk and one woman dies every minute. I want to help change that and get more women to take this problem to heart and fight back.
“With this PSA, I and this incredible Alliance want to motivate women to Fight the Ladykiller!,” concludes Hudson.
The PSA was produced by GMMB Inc. and edited by Beast and Company. Contact the Women’s Heart Alliance for a broadcast quality version of the PSA.
The Women’s Heart Alliance (WHA) was formed to raise awareness, encourage action and drive new research to fight women’s heart disease. It’s a unique collaboration between Barbra Streisand and Ronald O. Perelman and two of America’s leading medical institutions—the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. For more information, visit www.fighttheladykiller.org.
