Heart disease and stroke claimed more lives in 2022 in the United States than all forms of cancer and chronic lower respiratory disease combined, an American Heart Association (AHA) report said. In 2022 alone, 9,41,652 deaths in the US had cardiovascular disease listed as the underlying cause.

Cardiovascular disease refers to conditions that affect the heart or the blood vessels- including coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, heart failure etc. According to the report, among the cardiovascular disease related deaths, coronary heart disease, which is a disease of the blood vessels supplying blood to the heart muscles, was the leading cause.

"In 2022 in the United States, coronary heart disease (CHD) was the leading cause of deaths (39.5%) attributable to CVD in the United States, followed by stroke (17.6%), other CVD (17.0%), hypertensive diseases (14.0%), heart failure (9.3%), and diseases of the arteries (2.6%)," according to the report.

“Between 2017 and 2020, 127.9 million US adults (48.6%) had some form of CVD,” the report said. “Between 2020 and 2021, direct and indirect costs of total CVD were $417.9 billion ($233.3 billion in direct costs and $184.6 billion in indirect costs/mortality).” 

Non-Hispanic population had the highest incidence of CVD, with 59 per cent of non-Hispanic black females and 58.9 per cent of non-Hispanic black males suffering from some form of the disease between 2017 to 2020. 

Direct costs for CVD accounted for 11 per cent of total US health expenditures from 2020 to 2021, more than any major diagnostic group except diseases of the musculoskeletal system, the report said adding CVD led to around 19.41 million global deaths in 2021.

Coronary heart disease: the leading killer in the US

As mentioned above, coronary heart disease was the leading cause of deaths among those linked to cardiovascular disease. According to the report by the AHA, 3,71,506 deaths were caused by this disease of blood vessels in 2022.

"From 2012 to 2022 in the United States, the annual death rate attributable to CHD declined 16.9% and the actual number of deaths stayed relatively the same," according to its findings.

According to data from 2005 to 2014, the estimated annual incidence of heart attack in the United States was 6,05,000 new attacks and 2,00,000 recurrent attacks. 

“Average age at the first heart attack was 65.6 years for males and 72.0 years for females,” the report said, adding that someone in the United States will have a myocardial infarction every 40 seconds. 

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