A recent study by the American Heart Association attempts to paint a troubling picture. Over the past few decades, more women have been dying from heart disease than men.
In the year 2000 alone, 70,000聽more American women fell victim to this ailment than men.
In February, the AHA seized on this figure to organize a 鈥淕o Red for Women鈥� campaign, the purpose of which was to draw attention to the disproportionate fatality rates. The unstated implication was that women are receiving less adequate heart-health care.
The same suggestion has been made in sa国际传媒.
Now the AHA is an advocacy group, and it has every right to speak out. But it also has a duty to interpret the facts correctly, and this the organization failed to do in a rather spectacular fashion.
It is quite true that in recent years more women than men have been succumbing to coronary artery disease. But to understand why, you have to look at the AHA鈥檚 statistics with some additional information thrown in.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control reports American deaths from heart-related ailments in 10-year cohorts: So many fatalities in the 15 to 24 age group, so many in the 25 to 34 group, and so on all the way to 85-plus years.
The CDC also breaks the figures down by male and female. I聽hate to lay a heap of numbers on you, but it鈥檚 the only way to expose the AHA鈥檚 fake suggestion that women receive inadequate care. Here are the scores by age group.
In 2000, the number of men aged 35 to 44 who died of heart disease was 11,300. The female score was dramatically lower 鈥� 5,643.
In the 45 to 54 group, the male tally was 30,830 and among females 13,268 鈥� again significantly less.
In men aged 55 to 64, 51,687聽died: The female count was聽26,311.
In the 65 to 74 group, the male score was 92,000. The female score was 64,082.
So far, the number of fatalities among men vastly outweighs that of women.
But now things change. In the 75 to 84 age group, the male death count was 143,269. However, among women it was 154,094 鈥� slightly higher.
And in the 85-plus group, the male death rate was 103,931, compared with 237,603 for women.
As you can see, male fatalities in the earlier years of life were roughly double those of women. So how did the AHA arrive at the conclusion that women are being ill-served by the health-care system?
Easy. They simply added the total number of heart disease fatalities without regard for age, and there, women outnumber men 503,614 to 437,850.
How can this be? Also easy. Men are dying far younger, often in the prime of life, and consequently there are fewer left in the later years. By contrast, heart disease in women tends to be heavily concentrated in older age groups, so more survive to die of that condition.
This is most obvious in the 85-plus age group. Here, male deaths are less than half the female number, because most of the vulnerable men are already dead. Indeed, female deaths in this age group more than account for the entire gender difference.
If anything, what these figures suggest is the opposite of the AHA鈥檚 implication 鈥� that women receive inferior treatment.
Since men are dying far younger, you might more reasonably conclude that it is here we should be questioning the quality of care.
In fact, I don鈥檛 believe either inference is valid. Women live longer than men, and along with differences in body chemistry, this explains the larger number of heart-disease deaths.
As for the AHA, if you don鈥檛 know how to adjust incidence rates for age, you鈥檙e in the wrong line of business.
