Heart Disease Reigns as Top Killer, but Many Don't Know It

Heart disease remains the top cause of death worldwide, but it is not recognized as such by most adults, according to new data from the American Heart Association (AHA).

A full 51% of Americans who answered a survey in November 2023 did not correctly list heart disease as the leading killer, including 18% who said cancer and 16% who said they didn’t know.

“Heart disease, along with stroke, which is the fifth leading cause of death, claims more lives in the US than all forms of cancer and chronic lower respiratory disease combined, based on the most recent data available,” AHA President Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD (Stanford School of Medicine, CA), said in a press release. “The results of this survey, finding that most people do not know the significant impact of heart disease, is discouraging and even a bit frightening.”

The annual AHA report on heart disease and stroke statistics, published online this week in Circulation by Seth S. Martin, MD, MHS (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD), and colleagues from the AHA’s Council on Epidemiology and Prevention Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee, outlines the available data to date on the impact of these conditions worldwide.

Nearly half of Americans (48.6%) have some type of cardiovascular disease, including coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, and high blood pressure, the data show. The latter was especially prevalent, with 46.7% of all US adults having hypertension, yet 38% were unaware of their condition.

Additionally, the AHA reports that 931,578 people died of CVD last year, up by less than 3,000 from the year before. These included deaths from coronary heart disease (40.3%), stroke (17.5%), other minor CVD causes combined (17.1%), high blood pressure (13.4%), heart failure (9.1%), and diseases of the arteries (2.6%).

Globally, the report states that 27% of the world’s deaths in 2019 could be attributed to CVD.

“Although the research and statistics included in each year’s report illustrate the most recent data available, the historical data pulled from the collective work over the years is especially invaluable,” Martin said in the press release. “This type of information is crucial to the development of awareness initiatives and policy strategies and provides a road map for cardiovascular research priorities.”

The data “indicate a slowdown in the striking effects we initially saw” from the COVID-19 pandemic, he added.

The statistical update does have some good news. Specifically, it highlights that CVD death rates have dropped 60% since 1950 and that stroke fell from being the third ranking cause of death in 1938 to the fifth today. The report also notes the dramatic drop in cigarette smoking from more than 40% in the 1960s to about 11% today.