• by Larissa Faw , June 3, 2019

Joan is introducing feminine mannequins as the agency seeks to address gender disparities by enabling trainees become accustomed to performing CPR on bodies with breasts.  

The "WoManikin" product, developed with advocacy group United State of Women, is designed as an attachment for current CPR mannequins. The agency's goal is to have this product distributed at standard CPR training courses across the country which is why it will be open-sourced on its website and free to download by organizations and individuals. 

More details about the product can be found here. 

To help further raise awareness, Joan is partnering with the gender equality advocacy organization, the United State of Women, to launch a new digital and social campaign for National CPR Awareness Week happening June 1-7. The initiative includes a social media challenge through Instagram stories where women share short videos explaining why women often don’t receive CPR as well an attempt to spread virally by encouraging women to use the hashtag #GiveMeCPR.  

"We have some other partnerships in the works which will hopefully lead to national scale of adoption — our priority is to have the WoManikin adopted in CPR training classes across the country," says Jaime Robinson, Co-founder/Chief Creative Officer, Joan, adding most everyone at the agency has been trained in CPR on male mannequins. "Of course — performing CPR on men is more comfortable.  And that’s the problem." 

Although the female-led agency is often inspired to tackle many gender inequalities, this particular project was sparked by the study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes by Audrey L. Blewer, Ph.D., MPH, which revealed that women suffering cardiac arrest in public are 27% less likely than men to receive CPR. 

"There are millions of ways that the world treats women differently," says Robinson. "This one actually resulted in women dying on streets, with nobody rushing in to help them. And it seemed like an issue that was solvable," she says. "It comes directly from a lack of education and awareness that performing CPR on a woman is a normal and necessary thing."    

Initially, the project was entirely self-funded by the agency. More recently, Joan received its first grant from an outside partner to create more prototypes to distribute to schools across the country. "We are fundraising through the website to get the second wave out," explains Robinson.  

There was a surprising learning curve to these mannequins, says Robinson, explaining Joan brought a CPR instructor in to show them how to perform CPR on a woman once the agency had its working prototype.  "I’m sad to say that we had no idea what to do," she says. "You have to put your hand over the breast to do it correctly. It’s awkward at first. That’s why we absolutely need more people to get training."