Global CV Mortality Rates Increasing
The aging of global populations, population growth, and epidemiologic changes in disease are the main drivers for increasing cardiovascular disease mortality rates, and improved methods of treatment and prevention have not prevented these increases, according to a recent study.
In order to further explore these rising mortality rates, researchers used data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 from 188 countries in 21 world regions.
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“We developed three counterfactual scenarios to represent the principal drivers of change in cardiovascular deaths (population growth alone, population growth and aging, and epidemiologic changes in disease) from 1990 to 2013,” said the study’s authors.
“Secular trends and correlations with changes in national income were examined,” they said.
Researchers discovered that deaths from cardiovascular disease increased by 41% globally from 1990 to 2013 despite the 39% decrease in age-specific mortality rates.
The research showed that the increase was fueled by a 55% rise in death from the aging of populations and a 25% hike from population growth.
Further, researchers found that the increases varied by region; Western Europe and Central Europe were the only regions that showed a decline in death from cardiovascular disease.
The investigators noted that among upper-middle income countries, the change in gross domestic product per capital associated with the change in age-specific death rates.
The complete study is published in the April issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
-Michelle Canales Butcher
Reference:
Roth GA, Forouzanfar MH, Morgan AE, et al. Demographic and epidemiologic drivers of global cardiovascular mortality. NEJM. 2015 March [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1406656.