ABC | Volume 112, Nº6, June 2019

Special Article Brazilian Society of Cardiology – The Women’s Letter *Endorsed by European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Glaucia Maria Moraes de Oliveira, 1 Fátima Elizabeth Fonseca de Oliveira Negri, 2 Nadine Oliveira Clausell, 3 Maria da Consolação V. Moreira, 4 Olga Ferreira de Souza, 5 Ariane Vieira Scarlatelli Macedo, 4 Barbara Campos Abreu Marino, 6 Carisi Anne Polanczyk, 3 Carla Janice Baister Lantieri, 7 Celi Marques-Santos, 8 Cláudia Maria Vilas Freire, 4 Deborah Christina Nercolini, 9 Fatima Cristina Monteiro Pedroti, 10 Imara Correia de Queiroz Barbosa, 11 Magaly Arrais dos Santos, 1 2 Maria Cristiane Valeria Braga Braile, 13 Maria Sanali Moura de Oliveira Paiva, 14 Marianna Deway Andrade Dracoulakis, 15 Narriane Chaves Holanda, 16 Patricia Toscano Rocha Rolim, 17 Roberta Tavares Barreto Teixeira, 2 Sandra Mattos, 18 Sheyla Cristina Tonheiro Ferro da Silva, 8 Simone Cristina Soares Brandão, 19 Viviana de Mello Guzzo Lemke, 2 0 M arcelo Antônio Cartaxo Queiroga Lopes 21 Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 1 Rio de Janeiro, RJ – Brazil Hospital Universitário Lauro Wanderley – Universidade Federal da Paraíba, 2 João Pessoa, PB – Brazil Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 3 Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 4 Belo Horizonte, MG – Brazil Rede D’OR São Luiz, 5 Rio de Janeiro, RJ – Brazil Hospital Madre Teresa, 6 Belo Horizonte, MG – Brazil Faculdade de Medicina do ABC, 7 Santo André, SP – Brazil Hospital São Lucas, 8 Aracaju, SE – Brazil Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade Federal do Paraná, 9 Curitiba, PR – Brazil Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo, 10 Vitória, ES – Brazil Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, 11 Campina Grande, PB – Brazil Hospital do Coração para Instituto Dante Pazzanese de Cardiologia, 12 São Paulo, SP – Brasil Instituto Domingo Braile, 13 São José do Rio Preto, SP – Brazil Hospital Universitário Onofre Lopes, 14 Natal, RN – Brazil Instituição Ensino de Pesquisa do Hospital da Bahia, 15 Salvador, BA – Brazil Universidade Federal da Paraíba, 16 João Pessoa, PB – Brazil CENTROCOR, 17 João Pessoa, PB – Brazil Real Hospital Português de Beneficência em Pernambuco, 18 Recife, PE – Brazil Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, 19 Recife, PE – Brazil Cardiocare Clínica Cardiológica, 20 Curitiba, PR – Brazil Hospital Metropolitano Dom José Maria Pires, 21 João Pessoa, PB – Brazil Keywords Women; Medicine/ trends; Demography; Cardiovascular Diseases/prevention and control; Societies, Medical; Management Quality Circles; Risk Factors; Prevalence; Education, Medical. Mailing Address: Gláucia Maria Moraes de Oliveira • Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro – R. Prof. Rodolpho P. Rocco, 255 – 8°. Andar – Sala 6, UFRJ. Postal Code 21941-913, Cidade Universitária, RJ – Brazil E-mail: glauciam@cardiol.br , glauciamoraesoliveira@gmail.com Manuscript received May 03, 2019, revised manuscript May 15, 2019, accepted 15, 2019 DOI: 10.5935/abc.20190111 Objective The primary objective of this document is to stimulate improvements in women’s health conditions in Brazil, with a focus on cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is responsible for 17.5 million premature deaths yearly worldwide. This number is predicted to increase to 23 million by 2030. CVD are responsible for one third of all deaths in Brazil, with similarities between men and postmenopausal women. These data assume even greater importance when we consider that 80% of premature deaths could have been avoided by controlling four risk factors: tobacco use, inappropriate diet, physical inactivity, and harmful alcohol use. 1 This document further aims to create a permanent discussion group that will play a leadership role in Brazilian healthcare policies, providing administrators with an overall view of the relevance of CVD to women so that they may establish strategic actions to reduce the prevalence of risk factors and improve diagnosis and therapeutic approach, thus reducing mortality and morbidity. Foreword Considering that the burden of chronic noncommunicable diseases (CNCD), of which CVD are the main component, will continue to grow significantly in Brazil and worldwide; in line with the global target of a 25% reduction in premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases by 2025 as established by the World Health Assembly (WHA); 2 and in accordance with the United Nations High-level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, we endorse the measures proposed by this Assembly which reunited the cardiology societies of the Rio de Janeiro Letter, 3 also highlighting the importance of goals to be met for women, who currently represent 48% of the 7.7 billion inhabitants of the world and 47% of the 202,768,562 individuals who compose the population of Brazil, as of April 2019. 4 In recognition of the fact that, predominantly among younger doctors, the proportion of women doctors has increased over the past years, going from 22% in 1910 to 45.6% in 2018, and considering the fact that this increase 713