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Warren celebrates Women’s Heart Month: Awareness, education, empowerment

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Christen Downing
  • 90th Missile Wing Public Affairs
F. E. WARREN AIR FORCE BASE, Wyo. --  The 90th Medical Group Clinic hosted a health fair for Women's Heart Month on Feb. 14 to educate women and spread awareness about heart disease.

Kim Garcia, 90th Medical Group case manager special needs coordinator, helped coordinate the first-ever Women's Heart Health Fair at F. E. Warren.

"Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States -- hands down -- over cancer or strokes," Garcia said. "Our main goal is to make women aware of the differences in the signs and symptoms presented to women compared to men."

Because people are not aware of the symptoms of heart disease, the coordinators of the event focused on prevention, education and awareness, Garcia added.

For example, men may describe their heart pain as an elephant crushing their chest, but women may feel ill, experience indigestion or stomach pain, she explained.

"We tend to blow these things off and ignore them because we are taking care of the family and house and always on the go," Garcia said.

Capt. Joaquina Fontes-Lopes, 90th Medical Group health care integrator, led the coordination of the fair and discussed heart disease prevention factors.

"We need to exercise, change the way we eat and stop smoking," Fontes-Lopes said. "These are the keys to prevention."

It is important for women to take part in cardiovascular exercise because it strengthens the heart and its lining, Fontes-Lopes added.

Risk factors that may increase the chances of getting heart disease include: diabetes, poor diet, heredity, tobacco use, excessive alcohol, obesity, lack of physical activity and elevated blood cholesterol levels.

This event allowed F. E. Warren personnel and family members an opportunity to hear from many different helping organizations on base.

"Mental Health, Disease Management, Airmen and Family Readiness, the Medical Group, the Health and Wellness Center and the Drug Demand Program are here, along with Dr. Roger McMurray, one of our family medicine doctors here to discuss specifically the differences in symptoms for a woman versus a man," Garcia said. "And then we have our Family Health Clinic doing BMI and blood pressure checks."

The fair included educational presentations, health information booths, community resources, door prizes, snack and refreshments donated by the Commissary and health screenings in blood pressure, weight, height and BMI calculations.

"We just want to educate women, empower women and provide them with the tools they need to be aware," Fontes-Lopes said.

Elizabeth Adams, 90th Medical Group patient safety manager, passed out red dress pins to visitors in order to keep count of how many people they reached.

"I'm helping to promote safety with heart health because we want to prevent our patients from ever getting to that point," Adams said. "We prefer not to have to treat them for heart disease but instead to educate them to eat healthy, exercise and live a good life so that they can live longer."

Reaching over 400 people through the red dress campaign and the heart health fair, the event coordinators plan to make the Women's Heart Health Fair an annual event.

"I'm very proud of our team and glad we got to reach out and take care of our beneficiaries," said Col. Bridget Gregory, 90th Medical Group commander.

"If we can help save a life down the road because someone didn't realize this was a risk factor or this was a sign and it gets them to safety and help then we've done our job," Garcia said.