Coronary Heart Disease: Gendered Public Health Discourses

Abstract

Heart disease is a public health concern in most western societies. The high mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD) has resulted in public health initiatives to prevent this disease and to lower the morbidity and the mortality figures. CHD has been framed as a ‘men’s disease’ in public health discourse because men continue to more often die from this disease at younger ages than women. This chapter examines how CHD has been constructed in male gendered terms in public health discourse and discusses what kind of implications this gendered notion of the disease has had for women. The argument is that the early public health discourse on CHD was framed in the context of the United States and based on the medicalization of a certain type of masculinity. Later feminist health advocacy in this area has also had its origin in the US context. The gendered and cultural contexts of the public health discourses on CHD are important to consider when promoting policies to reduce gender inequalities in cardiac health.