Cardiovascular diseases, including ischaemic heart disease, stroke, heart failure, peripheral and aortic diseases, arrhythmias and valvular heart disease remain the leading global cause of death, and a major contributor to health loss worldwide, new data published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) indicate.
The Global Burden of Disease special report provides an update of health estimates for the global, regional and national burden and trends of cardiovascular disease from 1990‒2022 by analysing the impact of cardiovascular conditions and risk factors across 21 global regions.
The data suggest that in 2022 alone, cardiovascular disease caused an estimated 19.8 million deaths worldwide, up from around 12.4 million in 1990, corresponding to 396 million years of life lost and 44.9 million years lived with disability.
While cardiovascular disease rates are high globally, regions of Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East were estimated to have the highest burden of cardiovascular disease mortality, the study’s authors report. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, dietary risks and air pollution remain its leading causes, they note, adding that the research reflects an urgent need for countries to establish public health strategies aimed at preventing cardiovascular diseases, particularly in hard-to-reach regions.
Key data from the study include that ischaemic heart disease remains the leading global cause of cardiovascular disease mortality, with an age-standardised rate per 100,000 of 108.8 deaths, followed by intracerebral haemorrhage and ischaemic stroke. High systolic blood pressure accounted for the largest contribution to attributable age-standardised disability-adjusted life years at 2,5649 per 100,000 globally.
Eastern Europe had the highest age-standardised total cardiovascular disease mortality at 553 deaths per 100,000, but contrastingly, countries in Australasia had the lowest age-standardised total cardiovascular disease mortality at 122.5 deaths per 100,000 people. Central Asia, Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East had the highest age-standardised mortality rate per 100,000 people attributable to high systolic blood pressure. The regions with the highest rates of cardiovascular disease burden attributable to dietary risk were Central Asia, Oceania, and parts of North Africa and the Middle East.
“Cardiovascular diseases are a persistent challenge that lead to an enormous number of premature and preventable deaths,” said Gregory A Roth (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, USA), senior author of the paper. “There are many inexpensive, effective treatments. We know what risk factors we need to identify and treat. There are simple healthy choices that people can make to improve their health. This atlas provides detailed information on where countries stand in their efforts to prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases.”
“We formed the Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases Collaboration three years ago to help bring state-of-the-art research to the forefront of the global cardiovascular community,” said Valentin Fuster (Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, USA), a co-author of the study. “We are excited to publish this 2023 Almanac as a dedicated issue of the Journal to inform the realities of cardiovascular risk and inspire strategies for a heart-healthy world.”
Launched in 2020, the Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases Collaboration is an alliance between JACC, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
