03/18/2026
Below is a post from Thames Valley Air Ambulance in the UK. It highlights the sustained gender gap in CPR and the societal drivers that contribute to it. A Duke University study demonstrated that women were %14 less likely to receive bystander CPR than men (Brewer et al., 2024). Furthermore, in 2017 a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, noted that women were three times more likely than men to die following a serious heart attack due to unequal treatment across genders (Alabas et al., 2017). We know this. A recent CPR recert a member attended took the time say they recognised the issue, but that they weren’t going to alter the program to avoid making anyone uncomfortable. We can do better than choosing comfort over saving people’s lives. Female presenting CPR mannequins contribute positively to outcomes for women. Let’s make them normalise CPR as applying to all genders.
