American Heart Association and Macy’s to “Go Red for Women”

by Marisa Treviño of Latina Lista

The new program kicks off on February 1 where the stores will reward customers who wear red or make a $2 donation to the American Heart Association with a special shopping discount on selected items.

You might know that heart disease is the No. 1 killer of American women. You might even know that February 1 is National Wear Red Day in support of the fight, led by the Dallas-based American Heart Association . And you might know that the whole month of February is dedicated to the Go Red For Women movement.

But did you know that heart disease and strokes rank as the primary killer of Latino/Hispanic Americans? Or that among Mexican-American women, 34.4 percent have cardiovascular disease while 32 percent of the men do?

Or that for every 100,000 Hispanics in the United States in 2003, 130 died from coronary heart disease?

If you didn’t know, it’s an automatic bet that not very many (other) Latinos know either. Because of these stats, Latinos are considered a high-risk population for heart disease. Couple this news with the facts that more Latinos are overweight, inactive and tend to have diabetes and it’s safe to assume that many Latinos are walking time bombs.

Obviously, more research and outreach to the Latino population is necessary but in these economically squeezed times money is hard to come by. That’s why an innovative program from Macy’s department stores is such welcome news.

Macy’s has created the Macy’s Go Red For Women Multicultural Fund. Its goal is to raise awareness among Latinos of the higher risk for heart disease and provide grants to fund further research. Latinos are the first targeted population of the new fund.

The new program kicks off on February 1 where the stores will reward customers who wear red or make a $2 donation to the American Heart Association with a special shopping discount on selected items.

Among those items will be a selection of exclusive Geoffrey Beene menswear available throughout the month with a portion of the proceeds donated to the Go Red For Women movement.

Though February is only a week away, we don’t have to wait till then to get started. A quick visit to the Go Red For Women website can supply us with all the statistics, heart-healthy recipes and info on who are the shopping partners for the campaign.

In this day and age, there’s no excuse for not knowing about heart disease, its impact and how to prevent it — and there’s no time to lose, especially when that time is measured in heartbeats.