Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Voga bamb here. Breasts, to put it mildly, can sometimes get in the way. They're the recipients of some unwanted attention. It, just to be fair, some wanted attention. They can make it hard to find properly fitting clothing, and they require all kinds of special and sometimes unpredictable maintenance. They can cause back pain, can hurt during exercise, and can be strapped down by bras, which are often uncomfortable
and almost always expensive. All of this is inconvenient and annoying, but not really a matter of life and death. But did it ever occur to you that breasts might be the reason that you might not be administered CPR if you need it. It's true, and one New York based creative agency is taking the initiative to try to change that.
The problem is this, those who have formally or informally learned CPR, or who are at least confident enough to attempt it in a situation where it might do more good than harm, are overwhelmingly comfortable only if the chest of the person in need of CPR is reasonably flat. In other words, if it resembles CPR dummies, Female breasts get in the way, and research shows that those who would be inclined to perform CPR on a cardiac arrest victim in need are less likely to do so if
there are breasts complicating the situation. Since it's mostly women who have breasts, it's mostly women who are subject to this kind of probably unintentional discrimination, So how much of an impact does this have? A research indicates women are twenty seven percent less likely to receive CPR if the experience a cardiac arrest incident in public, since prompt administration of cprs key in such situations that could indeed be a matter of life and death. But enter the woll Mannequin.
The Womannequin is a training brov sorts to help bring equality to CPR. The Womannequin is a fabric add on that bestows a standard CPR dummy with breasts so people can learn CPR in a way that will hopefully keep them from being scared to perform the lifesaving procedure on
approximately half of the adult population. The idea is to get people used to the idea that performing CPR on a woman means that, yes, there will be some hand to breast contact, but we spoke via email with the Joane Agency's co founder and chief creative officer, Jamie Robinson. Via email, she said, there are so many ways women are treated differently and this resulted in them dying in the streets with nobody rushing into help. It seemed like an issue that was solvable and comes directly from a
lack of education and awareness. The performing CPR and a woman is a normal and necessary thing. The O mannequin took about four months to develop, from the time the Joane team first came up with the idea to its reveal in June of twenty nineteen. Of course, Joan Creative enlisted the help of medical experts to ensure that the
womannequan is as useful and accurate as possible. That included Dr Audrey Bluer, the author of the study that inspired the entire endeavor, who is currently an epidemiologist and a citation scientist at Duke University. Joan shared the process with Bluer and acknowledged that the team was fortunate to have
that opportunity. The Joan team also worked closely with other doctors and experts in CPR, including the New York based Frontline CPR, a school that was closely involved throughout the process, and the United State of Women, a national organization that connects and amplifies the work of organizations and individuals who
are addressing inequalities. These partnerships ensure that the Womannequan is properly designed and has the credibility necessary to get it into the right hands to make an impact as intended. Joan isn't finished with the Womannequin. In fact, the hardest part maybe yet to come, convincing gatekeepers that it's necessary and useful despite the overwhelming evidence that women are currently
underserved in this area. Jones team says that they hope to get Womannequin into every CPR school in the country by next year, motivated by a goal that cardiac intervention saves lives. Furthermore, Joan isn't driven by profit. Robinson says that the idea was to make well Mannequin is easy to replicate as possible to encourage widespread adoption, and thus its pattern is available to anyone with open sourced plans
available for free download. One of the elements of this story that initially caught our editorial team's eye is that joan creative, initiated the Womannequin project simply out of an opportunity and a need to do good. It's unusual, but not unheard of, for creative agencies to spend time and resources on internal projects that aren't funded by a client.
Usually the goal for such a project is publicity, and to be sure, there's an element of that in the Womannequin story, but in this case there may be a measurable improvement in women's lives and the saving of them as well. Today's episode was written by Shery's three Wit and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more on this and lots of other inclusive topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com, and for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.