Heart Health & Stroke - Programs - Web Site Activities

For Your Heart

During the last 4 years, OWH has developed a cardiovascular disease prevention Web site, tailored for women according to their race or ethnicity. This Web site is called For Your Heart and it is located on the National Women's Health Information Center Web site. The For Your Heart Web site provides a personalized and interactive healthcare education experience, utilizing a unique tailoring technology and development process. The program engages women in a Web site dialogue with the objective of building their personal knowledge about heart disease, with special attention given to minorities and the impact of diabetes on heart disease.

The theoretical basis of the For Your Heart initiative is the Stages of Change model, which proposes that changes in health behavior are not discrete events, but involve a progression through a continuum of behavior change readiness. Specifically, an individual's degree of behavior change typically reflects one of the five stages: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. The For Your Heart Web site builds a unique relationship with each user by asking her a series of questions and tailoring subsequent messages based on her specific risk factors and readiness to change.

HeartHealthy Women Web Site

Heart Healthy Women is an important new web site devoted to heart disease in women. Heart Healthy Women is the online source for the most up-to-date and comprehensive information on the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease in women. The web site features separate educational sections for women with heart disease and healthcare providers. Information offered includes:

the most important signs and symptoms of heart disease in women;

the accuracy of various diagnostic tests for women; and

the safety and effectiveness of treatments and surgical procedures that are appropriate for women with heart disease.

Currently, the web site focuses on coronary artery disease, but it will be expanded in the future to also include information on heart failure and other types of cardiovascular disease conditions. Heart Healthy Women is sponsored by the DHHS Office on Women's Health (OWH), the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), and WomenHeart.

Steps to Healthier Women

Steps to Healthier Women is a web-based information resource on how the Steps to a HealthierUS (STEPS) initiative relates to all women, especially women of color, and how women can make healthy choices. Steps to Healthier Women addresses health disparities issues based on race, ethnicity, gender and lifestyle choices through discussions, maps and charts. This web-based information resource incorporates Healthy People 2010 objectives and data by presenting and focusing on the STEPS initiative on chronic diseases of Asthma, Cancer, Diabetes, Heart Disease and Stroke and Obesity, and including discussion on STEPS lifestyle choices on nutrition, body weight, physical activity, tobacco use, and women and violence.

The unveiling of Steps to Healthier Women is to coincide with the 2004 Steps to a HealthierUS summit to be held in April 2004

Content last updated June 1, 2006