ABSTRACT
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death for women in the industrialized world. Diseases of the heart and blood vessels kill over 3 million women per year in developed countries alone (World Health Organization [WHO], 1995), and coronary heart disease (CHD) accounts for the greatest percentage of these deaths, causing more than one third of CVD deaths in these countries (WHO, 1995). In the United States alone, 2.5 million women are hospitalized annually for cardiovascular disorders (National Hospital Discharge Survey, 1995), and it is estimated that 7% of the population of adult women in the United States have CHD (NHANES III, 1995).
