Key result
Cardiovascular diseases cause almost 10,000 deaths annually in New Zealand, with nearly a quarter of all cases and half of Māori and Pacific deaths considered avoidable.
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This viewpoint highlights urgent inequities and care gaps in New Zealand's cardiovascular health system and calls for a comprehensive national heart health action plan to halve avoidable cardiovascular mortality and morbidity.
Cardiovascular diseases are responsible for almost 10,000 deaths annually in Aotearoa New Zealand. Almost a quarter of these are avoidable, increasing to half of all cardiovascular deaths for Māori and Pacific people. Health system reforms are an opportunity to set clear ambitious goals for improved heart health. This has been done for smoking, a cancer plan, mental health and diabetes among other health conditions. Given the scale of avoidable heart disease and avoidable heart health inequity, much of it due to people simply not accessing existing treatment options, there is no excuse not to deliver a national heart health action plan and we urge health policy makers to put it on the agenda.
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Mann et al. (2023) conducted an editorial in Cardiovascular disease in Aotearoa New Zealand. National heart health action plan was evaluated on Avoidable cardiovascular disease mortality and morbidity. Cardiovascular diseases cause almost 10,000 deaths annually in New Zealand, with nearly a quarter of all cases and half of Māori and Pacific deaths considered avoidable.