Women’s Cardiovascular Health Initiative
Transforming women’s heart health across their lifespan
Our Mission & Vision
Our vision is to be a globally recognized center of excellence in women’s cardiovascular health care delivery, research, education, and knowledge translation.
Our mission is to save women’s lives by preventing and treating cardiovascular disease in a more personalized and precise way.
About Us
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women worldwide, with a woman dying every 16 minutes in Canada.
Due to underrepresentation in research, women with heart disease are understudied, underdiagnosed, and undertreated, facing systemic healthcare inequities.
The Women's Cardiovascular Health Initiative focuses on transforming women’s heart health across their lifespan by improving clinical care, research, education and through community outreach. Our aim is to save women's lives by preventing and treating cardiovascular disease.
This is such an important topic, and not just for women. Everyone has a woman that’s important to them: a wife, a daughter, a mother, a friend, so this is a critical message to share with everyone.
Dr. Roopinder Sandhu
Director, Women's Cardiovascular Health Initiative
Our Pillars
Evidence-based medicine is an important piece of the puzzle for improving patient care. We aim to develop interdisciplinary translational cardiovascular research initiatives to address prevention, diagnosis, and treatment across a woman’s life span.
In 2023, we hosted a pan-Canadian process to identify the top 10 research priorities in women's health. Working with researchers and patients from across the country, we now understand what issues to address first.
To enable that research, we offered a catalyst grant competition. The winning grant application was from a trans-disciplinary team tackling venous thromboembolism in the transgender and gender diverse population. Learn more here.
In order to be eligible to receive funding and scholarships, we require completion of the CIHR's Online Training Modules: Integrating Sex & Gender in Health Research. It's another way we are fostering women's research.
It’s critical that physicians and researchers are aware that individuals have unique biological sex and gender differences and that each individual needs to receive the right treatment at the right time for them. Our goal is to raise awareness of the importance of sex and gender considerations in cardiovascular research disease prevention and progression.
To encourage more researchers and trainees to incorporate sex and gender considerations in their research, the WCHI provides annual scholarships and fellows to trainees undertaking this important work. Smaller awards, such as a quarterly trainee travel award, first-author publication awards and a Tine Haworth Cardiovascular Research Day poster award help support more students.
Seminar Series
The WCHI is also supporting women's health research across the University of Calgary with a monthly seminar series. The aim of this series is to increase awareness about the research underway and to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration. Learn more.
We are taking a practical approach to improving women’s cardiovascular health in Calgary by developing a Calgary-based clinic. Using the latest in evidence-based research, the clinic's aim is to identify the unique conditions, presentations, and symptoms of women when it comes to their cardiovascular health. Patients will have access to specialized diagnostic procedures, mental health assessment, and guideline-directed medical and device therapies.
Our goal is to close the gap between our understanding of cardiovascular disease in women and our actions to address. Our community engagement efforts are meant to help women better understand the unique challenges they face when it comes to their cardiovascular health, and ultimately to take charge of their own cardiovascular health.
We are doing this by taking part in public events and through awareness campaigns, like Wear Red Canada. Our Library Series brings expert talks to libraries around the city. Stay up to date on our events here.
Our Team
Dr. Roopinder K. Sandhu - Director
Roopinder K. Sandhu MD, MPH, FHRS, is a clinician-scientist and Professor of Cardiac Sciences at the University of Calgary. She is the Martha Brauer Chair in Women’s Cardiovascular Health Research and serves as the Director of the Women’s Cardiovascular Health Clinic (under-development) and Initiative. Dr. Sandhu’s research program focuses on epidemiology and health services research within the field of cardiac electrophysiology, with a particular focus on atrial fibrillation (AF), syncope, and sudden cardiac death (SCD).
Christina Faulkner - Senior Manager Clinical Innovation and Women's Cardiovascular Clinic
The manager of clinical innovation, technology, transformation and education connects clinicians and researchers to bolster the academic medicine mandate of the Institute and enhance transdisciplinary collaboration.
WCHI Pillar Leads
Community Outreach Lead
Dr. Sandra Dumanski
Dr. Dumanski is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Calgary and nephrologist at Alberta Health Services. Her research program her clinical expertise in kidney and cardiovascular disease with her scientific background in vascular physiology, and endeavors to understand the impact of sex and gender on cardiovascular and kidney outcomes in women and men.
Research Lead
Dr. Catherine Eastwood
Dr. Eastwood’s current work involves advancing collaborations, data access, and educational programs within the Centre for Health Informatics. Her research focuses on developing methods for evaluating the contribution of electronic health record data for more accurate and efficient identification of chronic diseases and hospital acquired conditions in hospital data.
Knowledge Mobilization/Translation (KT/KM) Lead
Dr. Michelle Keir
Dr. Michelle Keir is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Cardiac Sciences at the University of Calgary and a cardiologist specializing in adult cardiology and echocardiography at Alberta Health Services. She has worked at the Southern Alberta Adult Congenital Heart Clinic at the Peter Lougheed Centre in Calgary since 2017. Her research interests include complex adult congenital heart disease, aortopathy, cardiac disorders of pregnancy, mixed methods and health systems research.
Clinical Lead
Dr. Satish Raj
Satish R Raj, MD, MSCI, is a Professor in the Dept. of Cardiac Sciences at the University of Calgary and a heart rhythm cardiologist. He founded the Calgary Autonomic Investigation & Management Clinic. Dr. Raj's primary research interests relate to understanding and better treating postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS), vasovagal syncope, and orthostatic hypotension. Dr. Raj is the President of the American Autonomic Society and serves as a Medical Advisor to many POTS patient groups, including POTS UK, and Dysautonomia International.
Education Lead
Dr. Jennifer Thompson
Dr. Thompson, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Calgary. Dr. Thompson's research aims to understand the mechanisms linking maternal metabolic dysfunction to disease risk in the offspring. Her program has been supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Diabetes Canada, Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).