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Program in Cardiovascular Health Metrics

Advancing cardiovascular health through innovative research, global collaboration, and actionable insights for healthier communities worldwide

Photo by liderina, Adobe Stock.

9 million deaths were caused by ischemic heart disease in 2021, making it the leading cause of death globally.
29% of all deaths globally were caused by cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in 2021.
60 million cases of CVD occurred in those aged 15-39 years in 2021.
12% more CVD deaths occurred in men compared to women in 2021.

Key findings

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) constitute the leading cause of global mortality and are a major contributor to health loss worldwide.

CVDs includes ischemic heart disease, stroke, heart failure, peripheral and aortic arterial disease, arrhythmias, and valvular diseases.

 

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chart showing ischemic heart disease as the leading cause of health loss among cardiovascular diseases in 1990 and 2021

In 2022 alone, CVD caused an estimated 19.8 million deaths worldwide.

This corresponds to 396 million years of life lost and another 44.9 million years lived with disability.

 

Read the article

map showing the highest rate of deaths from CVD in 2022 occurred in Russia, Africa, and Oceania

Factsheets

For a concise overview of each cardiovascular cause, impairment, and risk factor modeled in the GBD study and the health loss related to each, please review our two-page factsheets.

Download data

Our cardiovascular disease data are the latest estimates available and may differ from previous estimates published in journals.

Download all cardiovascular disease data from the GBD Results tool.

line chart showing increasing number of deaths and disability-adjusted life years from cardiovascular diseases between 1980 and 2020

Which data sources did you use?

Our data sources include scientific literature, registries, surveys, and administrative records in our online data catalog, the Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx).  

  • Scientific literature includes results from population representative trials and other studies of cardiovascular health outcomes.
  • Registries refer to comprehensive collections of information related to cardiovascular diseases and treatments, systematically gathered and maintained for clinical, research, and quality improvement purposes.
  • Survey data comes from reputable sources including the Demographics and Health Survey, WHO, censuses, and others.
  • Administrative data refers to official data reported by health care organizations, institutions, or government agencies.

For more information, please review our detailed methodological information for each cause, impairment, or risk factor with these appendices.

View methods appendices

How do you address lower-quality data or gaps in data?  

We check for data quality issues before running our models both by analyzing the data and by looking at external sources of information about the data. Where possible, we use statistical techniques to quantify and adjust for biases in the data.  

In some cases, when there are significant concerns about data quality, those sources may be excluded from the models. Our models use trends in time and predictive covariates to produce estimates of CVDs for locations and years in which no data are available.  

We also produce estimates of the uncertainty for our predictions – when data are sparse or conflicting, our estimates are more uncertain.

While these models provide valuable insights into cardiovascular health in settings where data are missing or of lower quality, they aren’t a replacement for high-quality data. We support the broader efforts of the cardiovascular health metrics community to strengthen data quality.  

How can I contribute data or share feedback on estimates?

To learn how you can contribute to the estimation of CVDs, email us at [email protected].