The Atlas Working Group of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) has put together a report on CV statistics across 56 member countries of the ESC. Focus in this 2019 report is on international inequalities in CVD burden and healthcare delivery. Also, there is an emphasis on estimates of progress towards meeting 2025 World Health Organization (WHO) targets in non-communicable disease.

In this report from the ATLAS Working Group of the ESC, CVD statics are presented for member countries of the ESC. Data are derived from the ESC Atlas, a repository of CVD data from sources such as the WHO, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and the World Bank.

Major findings in this report were as follows. Prevalence of obesity and diabetes has increased 2-3 fold during the last 30 years and the authors state that is will be unlikely that 2025 WHO targets in this field will be met. Trends of decline in hypertension, smoking and alcohol use are more favorable, but more decline is needed to achieve 2025 targets. Middle-income countries have higher prevalence of major risk factors than high-income ESC member countries and as a result there were inequalities in disease burden with higher disability life years due to CVD and higher CVD mortality in middle-income countries compared with high-come countries. Middle-income countries remain under-resourced in terms of cardiological person-power and technological infrastructure.

Find the full report at Eur Heart J