Dr. Ann Marie Navar & Dr. Habibat Garuba: Preventative Cardiology and CVD Management in Vulnerable Populations: Pregnant women, Black, and Indigenous patients

Dr. Habibat Garuba, cardiologist at The Ottawa Hospital General Campus and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, and Dr. Anne Marie Navar, cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, discuss the opportunity to improve risk stratification strategies for pregnant women. Cardiac complications in pregnancy, particularly hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, increase future CV risk dramatically. Pregnancy-related mortality is particularly higher among Black women in the United States (three times higher than for Caucasian women). Dr. Garuba talks about the IMPROVE Post-Partum Program at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, which is a combined initiative with the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Centre and the Cardiac Prevention & Rehab Division. Dr. Garuba also shares her experience completing an elective in Nigeria and how managing cardiovascular disease within this resource-limited setting shares many parallels to some of the challenges here among BIPOC communities.