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Phyllis E. Greenberger, MSW |
WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 2, 2006) — Phyllis Greenberger, M.S.W., President and CEO of the Society for Women’s Health Research, received a Red Dress Award today in recognition of her work in leading the way in the fight against heart disease in women. Presented by Woman’s Day, the awards are part of the annual “Wear Red Day for Women,” which encourages women to wear red on the first Friday of February, drawing attention to heart disease, the number one killer of American women.
“This is a wonderful award,” Greenberger said. “It is an honor to be recognized alongside other health pioneers, all of whom have made outstanding contributions to women’s health and heart disease.”
Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and Alice Jacobs, a cardiologist and past president of the American Heart Association, are the other 2006 Red Dress Award recipients.
“The Society was first to focus attention on the incidence of heart disease in women, long thought of as a man’s disease,” Greenberger said. “While it is true that in general men suffer from heart disease at an earlier age, it was not recognized that women suffer from heart disease in greater numbers than men later in life. This was a fact that escaped most researchers and doctors. The result was that women were often misdiagnosed, mistreated, or ignored.”
The awards, established in 2004, were presented at an event in New York this evening. Past winners of the award include Nanette Wenger, M.D., chair of the Society’s board of directors. Wenger is chief of cardiology at Grady Memorial Hospital and a professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
Greenberger edited the Society’s new book, “The Savvy Woman Patient: How and Why Sex Differences Affect Your Health.” It is an accessible and comprehensive guide to health problems and treatments unique to women of all ages, from childbearing to caregiving and empty nest years. Wenger is the author of the book’s chapter on heart disease.
