The Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases and Risks

GlobalBurden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 provides a systematic and consistent approach to measuring changes in global, national, and subnational cardiovascular health.Incorporating data from 281,586 sources, the GBD 2019 study is an independent, publicly available resource (1) that meets the Guidelines on Accurate and Transparent Health Estimate Reporting (2).The following review from the Global Burden of Disease/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/Journal of the American College of Cardiology Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases Collaboration highlights major findings from the latest GBD study and places them in context as they relate to public policy, clinical practice, and research priorities.In 2019, cardiovascular disease (CVD) was the underlying cause of 9.6 million deaths among men and 8.9 million deaths among women, approximately onethird of all deaths globally.Of these deaths, 6.1 million occurred in people between the ages of 30 to 70 years.The highest number of CVD deaths occurred in China, followed by India, the Russian Federation, the United States, and Indonesia.Despite a 30-year decline in age-standardized CVD mortality rates globally, the GBD 2019 study reveals increasing age-standardized CVD mortality in many locations since 2010 and an overall flattening of the global decline in the past 5 years.These "hotspot" locations show that factors beyond aging and population growth are driving up CVD mortality.