PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

Immediately performing CPR after cardiac arrest dramatically increases a person’s chance of survival. 

But studies have shown women are less likely to receive it.

Whether due to fear of sexual assault accusations or fear of hurting a person of smaller stature, bystanders are less likely to perform CPR on women than men.

Dr. Virginia Singla, a cardiologist at the UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute, says this has come to light during the last five-10 years as researchers have looked at groups of people who receive out-of-hospital bystander CPR.

“There’s a gender inequity there,” she says. “They did notice that this effect was much more prominent in public places rather than private places where women received CPR, so that has led the [medical] community to speculate that this may be partially due to concerns over repercussions or accusations of harassment.”

Another reason is that in popular culture men are more frequently depicted as having a heart attack or other heart issues, even though heart disease is the leading cause of death in women.

“We all have the association of men clutching their chests, having a heart attack,” Singla says. “So reframing how we think about, in general, who is likely to collapse, who is likely to have their heart stop, is the first step to this.”

The American Heart Association is working to ensure that women are included in CPR training materials and videos, Singla says, and startup companies are manufacturing CPR dummies to look more like biological women.

“The assumption is that there is just some ignorance in the community about where to place the hands when breasts are involved,” Singla says. “Where to place the external defibrillation patches can be a little trickier, and it’s important to have an awareness of that during our training.

“Our hope is that with each iteration, each generation that trains on these models, that it will in some ways normalize that many of our victims, as we call them, are women.”

Another reason bystanders may be hesitant to perform CPR on women is they’re worried about hurting them, Singla says. But the outcome of not trying is far worse.

“We need to get over … this fear of potentially hurting someone just because a woman may be smaller or perceived as more frail,” Singla says. “She still needs the robust reaction and treatment.”