KCUR: Kansas City Heart Experts Say Better CPR Education Can Reduce Unequal Survival Rates

About 350,000 Americans have heart attacks outside of hospitals each year, and only about one out of 10 survive, according to the American Heart Association. Those odds generally improve if someone is nearby to administer CPR.

But a Kansas City cardiologist has found that Black people and women are less likely to benefit from a bystander giving them CPR.

Bystander CPR is possible because many people who are not medical professionals receive training in CPR through volunteer organizations and in other settings.

Dr. Paul Chan, a cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute and a team of researchers looked at more than 600,000 cardiac arrests that occurred outside of hospital settings. Of those, 40% of people received CPR from a bystander. On average, people who received this care had a 28% higher chance of survival.

But survival outcomes varied greatly between race and gender. White men who received bystander CPR were 41% more likely to survive, but Black women only had a 5% greater chance of survival.

Read the full KCUR article: Kansas City Heart Experts Say Better CPR Education Can Reduce Unequal Survival Rates