Key messages from the latest ESC Atlas datasets
 

• CVD remains a leading health challenge in ESC member countries, responsible for more than 3 million deaths — equivalent to 355 deaths every hour.
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• While more men than women die prematurely from CVD overall, financial deprivation affects women more severely. Only 7% of women's CVD deaths are premature in high-income countries, compared with 25% in middle-income countries.
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• The rate of healthy life-years lost due to CVD is triple in middle-income compared with high-income countries, underscoring the need for stronger health system investment and more equitable service provision.
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• The rate of healthy life-years lost due to CVD attributable to particulate-matter air pollution is 9 times higher in middle-income countries than in high-income countries.
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• Females comprised 50% of cardiologists working in middle-income countries but representation was markedly lower in high-income countries (31.3%). Underrepresentation was even more pronounced in specialized fields: women accounted for just 11.5% of interventional cardiologists and only 8.8% of cardiac surgeons.
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• Access to structural heart interventions remains highly unequal. TAVI rates in middle-income countries were more than 13 times lower than in high-income countries, and transcatheter mitral and tricuspid interventions were extremely low in middle-income countries.