Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases and Risk Factors, 1990–2019: Update From the GBD 2019 Study

Authors

Gregory A. Roth, University of Washington
George A. Mensah, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Catherine O. Johnson, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
Giovanni Addolorato, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome
Enrico Ammirati, Ospedale Niguarda, Milan
Larry M. Baddour, Mayo Clinic
Noël C. Barengo, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
Andrea Z. Beaton, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Emelia J. Benjamin, School of Public Health
Catherine P. Benziger, Essentia Health
Aimé Bonny, University of Douala
Michael Brauer, The University of British Columbia
Marianne Brodmann, Medizinische Universität Graz
Thomas J. Cahill, Newpath Partners LLC
Jonathan Carapetis, Telethon Kids Institute
Alberico L. Catapano, Università degli Studi di Milano
Sumeet S. Chugh, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Leslie T. Cooper, Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida
Josef Coresh, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Michael Criqui, University of California, San Diego
Nicole DeCleene, Michigan Medicine
Kim A. Eagle, Michigan Medicine
Sophia Emmons-Bell, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
Valery L. Feigin, University of Washington
Joaquim Fernández-Solà, Hospital Clinic Barcelona
Gerry Fowkes, The University of Edinburgh
Emmanuela Gakidou, University of Washington
Scott M. Grundy, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Feng J. He, Queen Mary University of London
George Howard, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health
Frank Hu, Harvard Medical School
Lesley Inker, Tufts Medical Center

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-22-2020

Journal

Journal of the American College of Cardiology

Volume

76

Issue

25

First Page

2982

Last Page

3021

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.1016/j.jacc.2020.11.010

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), principally ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke, are the leading cause of global mortality and a major contributor to disability. This paper reviews the magnitude of total CVD burden, including 13 underlying causes of cardiovascular death and 9 related risk factors, using estimates from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019. GBD, an ongoing multinational collaboration to provide comparable and consistent estimates of population health over time, used all available population-level data sources on incidence, prevalence, case fatality, mortality, and health risks to produce estimates for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019. Prevalent cases of total CVD nearly doubled from 271 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 257 to 285 million) in 1990 to 523 million (95% UI: 497 to 550 million) in 2019, and the number of CVD deaths steadily increased from 12.1 million (95% UI:11.4 to 12.6 million) in 1990, reaching 18.6 million (95% UI: 17.1 to 19.7 million) in 2019. The global trends for disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and years of life lost also increased significantly, and years lived with disability doubled from 17.7 million (95% UI: 12.9 to 22.5 million) to 34.4 million (95% UI:24.9 to 43.6 million) over that period. The total number of DALYs due to IHD has risen steadily since 1990, reaching 182 million (95% UI: 170 to 194 million) DALYs, 9.14 million (95% UI: 8.40 to 9.74 million) deaths in the year 2019, and 197 million (95% UI: 178 to 220 million) prevalent cases of IHD in 2019. The total number of DALYs due to stroke has risen steadily since 1990, reaching 143 million (95% UI: 133 to 153 million) DALYs, 6.55 million (95% UI: 6.00 to 7.02 million) deaths in the year 2019, and 101 million (95% UI: 93.2 to 111 million) prevalent cases of stroke in 2019. Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of disease burden in the world. CVD burden continues its decades-long rise for almost all countries outside high-income countries, and alarmingly, the age-standardized rate of CVD has begun to rise in some locations where it was previously declining in high-income countries. There is an urgent need to focus on implementing existing cost-effective policies and interventions if the world is to meet the targets for Sustainable Development Goal 3 and achieve a 30% reduction in premature mortality due to noncommunicable diseases.