Did you know that in Switzerland more women die from heart attacks than men? Or that women suffer different heart attack symptoms to men? We surveyed 1,573 people aged between 18 and 79 from German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland in order to analyse awareness of gender medicine and cardiovascular diseases among the Swiss population. The main facts and findings from our publication Health: a matter of the heart are summarised below.
The term ‘gender medicine’ remains virtually unknown
More than half of the survey participants didn’t know what gender medicine means. 39% of the survey participants had heard the term gender medicine before and 11% were familiar with the topic. Even though gender medicine is recognised in the healthcare sector, it’s only slowly filtering through into medical care. This is something that the industry is aware of and is trying to change. “Here at PwC, we contribute to finding solutions in various branches of healthcare. In order to close the aforementioned gaps in gender medicine data, we’re developing, for example, AI-based applications that standardise health data, identify patterns of gender-sensitive differences and make these findings usable for medical care,” explains Dominik Hotz, Health Industries Leader EMEA and PwC Switzerland.
The ‘male condition’ myth persists
85% of the survey participants believed that more men die from cardiovascular disease than women. 53% believed that the most common cause of death in women is cancer. The official statistics dispel this myth: in 2022, 10,951 women and 9,512 men died from cardiovascular disease. This group of diseases is the number one cause of death in Switzerland at 27.5%, followed by cancer at 23.1%.
Women and men get sick differently
When asked about known heart attack symptoms, both genders most frequently mentioned chest pain and shortness of breath, which are perceived as typical male symptoms. Women often display other symptoms at the same time, such as back or abdominal pain, nausea or vomiting. However, the respondents had very little awareness of these signs. The lack of awareness of gender-specific symptoms often results in women leaving it too late to seek medical treatment. Such a delay can have fatal consequences or result in permanent heart damage. There may also be macroeconomic effects such as costly follow-up treatments.
The stigma of heart disease
Heart attacks are generally seen as a condition that typically affects ‘male executives’, pointing to a lack of resilience and an unhealthy lifestyle. This stigma also contributes to the fact that women who have suffered a heart attack are less likely to talk publicly about their condition than women with breast cancer, for example. After all, they don’t want to be the voice of a risk group to which they feel they don’t belong.
On the national agenda
82% of respondents believed it makes sense for a disease to be diagnosed and treated based on a person’s gender. 60% of women questioned believed that insufficient information and guidance is available on how to prevent cardiovascular diseases. Various players in the Swiss healthcare sector have taken up the subject of gender medicine. However, the current initiatives lack any overarching orientation at national level. Philip Sommer, Healthcare Advisory Leader at PwC Switzerland, explains “More education is needed in Switzerland. Large-scale campaigns should appeal to everyone: patients, healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, health insurers and, ultimately, the general public”.
About this survey
The data for the PwC survey Health: a matter of the heart was collected in January 2024 by means of an online questionnaire conducted by an external market research company. A total of 1,573 people aged between 18 and 79 in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland were surveyed, of whom 1,050 were women and 523 were men. The results were weighted according to age group, gender and region in order to reflect the actual ratios in the population. The authors refined the quantitative findings by including two interviews with female experts.
