早期的心脏病数据保管员把她的心倾注在数字和棒球上

Every year, 美国心脏协会汇编了统计数据，讲述了心血管疾病如何影响美国人的生活.S. and around the world. This massive, 一个专家团队经过数月的努力，写出了一本书长度的报告，涵盖了如此多的主题，以至于需要章节标题.

But it didn't start out that way. Nearly 100 years ago, it began with just one woman. 一个喜欢玩弄数字的女人，就像她喜欢打棒球一样.

Jessamine Whitney是美国心脏协会档案中发现的最早的心脏病死亡率统计报告的作者，她从小跟着父亲在纽约北部看棒球比赛, carrying with her a tiny rocking chair so she'd have a place to sit. 旧报纸上的故事描述了一个热爱棒球的年轻数学天才，他的双重激情导致了他作为国际公认的统计学家的职业生涯和对体育分析的爱好, long before that phrase came into being.

Dr. Seth Martin是巴尔的摩约翰霍普金斯医学院的心脏病专家，也是美国心脏协会的主席 2024 statistics update 他对惠特尼在这两个领域的开创性努力非常着迷. He noted that her first statistical report for the AHA, published in 1927, included mortality data on heart disease, tuberculosis, cancer and pneumonia and was 30 pages long.

"I was really intrigued that it was a report from a single author," he said. “现在我们有一个非常大的委员会来撰写这些文件，它们有数百页长.

"To do this all by herself and also at this time, when modern computing didn't exist, was really incredible," Martin said. “我试着想象将所有这些图表和数字制成表格可能需要的所有手工工作. She seems to have been a really remarkable woman for sure."

Whitney was a woman of many firsts. She was reportedly the first woman to drive a car in Puerto Rico. 她是第一位也是唯一一位在1929年被选为美国代表参加死因分类国际会议的女性, which met in Paris every 10 years.

Whitney studied mathematics and economics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, earning her bachelor's degree in 1905. She worked briefly for the U.S. Census Bureau, and, in 1918, she became the statistician for the National Tuberculosis Association, 她在那里工作了22年直到1941年她在办公桌前突发致命心脏病.

1926年，两家卫生组织制定了一份全国结核病协会报告所称的“合作计划”，此后她开始为美国心脏协会工作, while they briefly considered a merger, sharing office space, staff and funding.

As does AHA's current statistical update, 惠特尼早期的报告对死亡原因进行了排名，发现心脏病排在第一位. That much has not changed, Martin said. 他在为美国心脏协会的百年统计更新做研究时偶然发现了惠特尼的作品.

当他在网上搜索惠特尼的名字，发现她穿着棒球服的照片时，他对惠特尼的兴趣进一步被激发了. 惠特尼因对棒球比赛比分的分析而闻名于世，以至于她在1914年被邀请担任一场慈善比赛的裁判.

“她在统计棒球运动员和球队的数据以及试图预测获胜者方面积累了很多经验," Martin said. Whitney analyzed the statistics during her free time, 当她不做社会调查研究谁会死于肺结核以及原因的时候.

这些技能使她有资格为美国心脏协会编制这些统计数据," Martin said.

他说，惠特尼的早期工作不仅仅提供了关于心脏病死亡率的有趣事实. It likely helped shape the mission of the AHA, as do the reports that evolved into the voluminous analyses produced today.

"At its core, the statistical document can be viewed as being the heart and soul of AHA," Martin said. “它向我们展示了事情每年是如何变化的，以及AHA应该在哪些方面进行投资, where priorities should be in terms of advocacy and research. It's an important guiding light."

Jessamine Whitney was the first to make it shine.