Women and Black Patients Lose More Years of their Life after Heart Attack

A research being led by the Yale School of Medicine in the United States has unveiled that a heart attack can cut more number of years from a woman’s life than of a man. The research has unveiled that the effect of heart attack is larger on women as well as on African Americans.

The study researchers were of the view that the findings could be associated to difference in the quality of care that patients receive. The study was carried out on 147,000 patients who suffered heart attacks in the mid-1990s. The patients were tracked for next 17 years, as per which, it has been unveiled that heart attack takes away on an average 10 years from the lives white female heart attack patients.

In the case of white men, they lose 5.1 years. When it comes to black people, male or female, more years are reduced in comparison to white patients. It is being said that men and women had same circumstances after a heart attack. But the research has unveiled that such is not the case.

“It is imperative that we understand whether disparities we observe in a specific group, like people with heart attacks, is particular to them or more broadly reflective of the experience in the population”, affirmed Yale researcher Harlan Krumholz.

Harlan said that they noticed that women and black patients were losing more years of their life after a heart attack. One of the reasons behind it could be that they are not receiving equal level of care in comparison to men and white patients.