Systemic Silence: Why Black Women Are Still Dying of Heart Disease
- maryrburrell
- Dec 25, 2025
- 2 min read
Our Most-Listened Episode of 2025
🌟 This episode showed up big on Spotify Wrapped — with 63% more listens than any other episode this year.
And honestly, that doesn’t surprise me.
Because this conversation needed to happen.
❤️ Why This Episode Matters
In this roundtable episode of Heart to Heart Talk, I sat down with Azure Burrell and Katherine Waddell to talk about an issue that still doesn’t get the attention it deserves: Black women’s heart health.
🫀 Heart disease is the #1 killer of women in the United States.
📊 Black women are about 30% more likely to die from heart disease than white women.
These numbers aren’t abstract.
They show up in real lives, real families, and real loss.
That’s why this conversation mattered.
🗣️ What We Talked About
This wasn’t a surface-level discussion.
We talked honestly about:
• Symptoms being brushed off or labeled “atypical”
• Missed or delayed diagnoses
• Medical bias and gaps in care
• What it feels like to not be believed when something is wrong
Azure and Katherine shared personal stories of caregiving, loss, self-advocacy, and survival. We also talked about the cultural silence around health in Black families, and how that silence can delay care and increase fear, stress, and harm.
❓ The Questions That Often Go Unasked
This episode centered Black women’s heart health and asked questions like:
• Why are women’s heart symptoms still treated as “atypical”?
• Why are Black women less likely to be believed when they say something feels wrong?
• Why does care often come after damage is already done?
These are not rare experiences.
They are patterns.
🚫 This Wasn’t About Blame
This episode wasn’t about blaming doctors.
It was about naming a pattern.
Because silence is part of the problem.
When stories aren’t heard, systems don’t change.
When patients aren’t believed, outcomes suffer.
🎧 Why People Keep Listening
This episode stays with people because it reflects what too many Black women are living every day — and why listening sooner, believing patients, and acting earlier can save lives.
🚨 Listen, Share, and Break the Silence Around Black Women’s Heart Health.
Heart2Heart Talk, Where we speak from the heart, for the heart.
Comments