Improved care needed to combat rising HF rates globally
Countries with a low sociodemographic index need improved medical care to combat increasing rates of HF, according to a study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
“Although advances in medical therapy and device assistance have significantly improved the outcomes of HF, implications of HF are still dramatic. ... Besides the clinical burden, HF-related costs are particularly heavy,” Nicola Luigi Bragazzi, MD, PhD, from the department of mathematics and statistics at York University in Toronto, and colleagues wrote. “Therefore, it is an onus from the public health organisms to decrease the health and economic burden generated by HF.”
To provide a systemic analysis of HF burden from 1990 to 2017, researchers analyzed the prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs) and underlying HF cause from the Global Burden of Disease study. Researchers further compared HF rates and YLDs by age, sociodemographic index (SDI) and location.
Although researchers observed a 91.9% increase in the global number of HF cases from 1990 to 2017 (33.5 million vs. 64.3 million), study results showed the age-standardized prevalence (831 cases per 100,000 people) and YLDs (128.2 cases per 100,000 people) decreased by –7.2% and –0.9%, respectively. Further analysis of underlying causes showed ischemic heart disease (26.5%), hypertensive heart disease (26.2%) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (23.4%) accounted for the highest rates of age-standardized prevalence. Researchers also noted significant geographic and sociodemographic variation in the trends of HF burden, with most countries in Central Europe, North Africa and the Middle East yielding high age-standardized prevalence rates.
“Although the age-standardized prevalence and YLD rates of HF have significantly decreased in countries in the high SDI quintile, increasing rates were still observed in countries with relatively low SDI,” Bragazzi and colleagues wrote. “Given the significant geographic variation in the burden and underlying causes of HF across regions and countries, more geo-specific strategies aimed at preventing underlying causes and improving medical care for HF are warranted to reduce the future burden of this condition.”
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