The $400B burden of heart disease, stroke: 15 notes

Heart disease and stroke remained the leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2022, outpacing the number of combined deaths from cancer and accidental deaths, according to the American Heart Association’s 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics report, published Jan. 27 in Circulation.

There were 941,652 deaths related to heart disease and stroke in the U.S. in 2022. The data showed a slight decrease from 2021 numbers after adjusting for age, according to a Jan. 27 news release from the association. 

Here are 15 things to know from the report:

Costs

  1. Between 2020 and 2021, the average annual direct and indirect costs for cardiovascular diseases totaled $417.9 billion. 

  2. Between 2020 and 2021, the average annual direct and indirect costs for coronary heart disease totaled $129.3 billion.

  3. Direct costs for cardiovascular disease totaled $233.3 billion between 2020 and 2021, accounting for 11% of the total U.S. health expenditures — more than any other group outside of musculoskeletal system diseases.

    Coronary heart disease costs represented 23%, hypertension represented 18% and ischemic stroke/transient ischemic attack represented 11% of all direct cardiovascular disease costs.

Incidence

  1. Between 2017 and 2020, 48.6% of adults in the U.S. had some form of cardiovascular disease. During the same time period, 59% of non-Hispanic Black females and 58.9% of non-Hispanic Black males had some form of cardiovascular disease. 

Death

  1. The leading causes of death from cardiovascular disease in 2022 were coronary heart disease (39.5%), stroke (17.6%), other cardiovascular diseases (17.0%), hypertensive diseases (14%), heart failure (9.3%) and diseases of the arteries (2.6%).

  2. Between 2012 and 2022, the annual rate of deaths attributed to coronary heart disease decreased 16.9%.

  3. Stroke accounted for about 1 of every 20 deaths in 2022, with one person dying from stroke about every three minutes.

  4. In 2022, the annual rate of stroke as an underlying cause of death increased 7%.

  5. In 2022, the age-adjusted rate of death attributed to diabetes was 24.1 per 100,000. The age-adjusted rate of death attributed to high blood pressure was 31.5 per 100,000.

  6. According to data from 2023, the rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival to hospital discharge remained low, at 10.2% for all EMS-treated non-traumatic events, 15.4% for bystander-witnessed events and 18.2% for 911 responder-witnessed events. 

Risk factors

  1. According to data collected from 2017 to 2020, about 47% of adults in the U.S. have high blood pressure, more than 72% have an unhealthy weight — of which 42% have obesity — and about 57% have Type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.

    About 40% of children in the U.S. have an unhealthy weight, of which 20% have obesity. 

Disparities

  1. Black women had the highest rate of obesity (57.9%) and Asian women had the lowest rate (14.5%).

  2. Hispanic men had the highest rate of diabetes (14.5%) and white women had the lowest rate (7.7%).

  3. Black women had the highest rate of high blood pressure at 58.4% and Hispanic women had the lowest rate (35.3%).

  4. "The disparities in risk and outcomes call for tailored interventions among high-risk populations," Dhruv Kazi, MD, head of health economics and associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said in the release. "Simply discovering breakthrough therapies isn't going to be enough — we have to ensure that these therapies are accessible and affordable to people who need them most."

Read the full report here


Editor's note: This article was updated Jan. 28 at 10:38 a.m. CT. 

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