A recent study found movies perpetuate misconceptions around heart attacks, which could detrimentally impact the public's knowledge and awareness.
The study, published Aug. 14 in the Journal of the American Heart Association, analyzed heart attack scenes from 83 U.S. and 17 international films from 1932 to 2022. Of the scenes, only 10 women were portrayed as having heart attacks and all the men portrayed were white.
Researchers found that the two most prevalent signs shown on screen were falling to the ground and losing consciousness. Other common symptoms included showing signs of chest pain, screaming or yelling or clutching at their chest. The portrayals almost all showed a white man clutching his chest and collapsing. Few women or people of color were represented on the big screen, and the portrayals of typical symptoms of heart attack were similarly limited in number.
"Given the crucial role popular media plays in shaping public understanding of health issues, this lack of representation could be contributing to the misunderstanding that cardiovascular disease is a man's disease," lead author, Kirsten Shaw, MD, a cardiology fellow at Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute in Minnesota, said in an American Heart Association news release. "In reality, heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the U.S. and disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minority populations. But they aren't seeing themselves represented in popular media."
A 2019 AHA survey found that only 44% of women recognized heart disease as the leading cause of death among women, down from 65% in 2009.