King's College London

Globally, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in women. Furthermore, over half of people living with CVD are women and women experience greater risk of CVD through social, financial and education inequalities in society. Despite this, women are considerably underrepresented in CVD research, across the specialities, and constitute less than a third of CVD trial participants. This sex-bias, sustained over decades, has resulted in limited evidence about the risk factors, diagnosis, treatment pathways and outcomes of CVD in women. Patients, researchers and funding organisations are interested in addressing this gap and seek to identify the current priorities to inform future work. This priority setting partnership (PSP) funded by Heart Research UK launched in September 2025, and will look to identify and prioritise the evidence uncertainties and unanswered questions in this important area. It aims to generate a national top ten research priorities for women and CVD to guide funding organisations and researchers on the important research questions to be addressed.