Demographic and Epidemiologic Drivers of Global Cardiovascular Mortality

Global deaths from cardiovascular disease are increasing as a result of population growth, the aging of populations, and epidemiologic changes in disease. Disentangling the effects of these three drivers on trends in mortality is important for planning the future of the health care system and benchmarking progress toward the reduction of cardiovascular disease.

We used mortality data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013, which includes data on 188 countries grouped into 21 world regions. We developed three counterfactual scenarios to represent the principal drivers of change in cardiovascular deaths (population growth alone, population growth and aging, and epidemiologic changes in disease) from 1990 to 2013. Secular trends and correlations with changes in national income were examined.