Cardiovascular disease in Europe: epidemiological update 2016

This is the fourth in a series of papers describing the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) within Europe.1–3 CVD remains the most common cause of death worldwide, with the 2013 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study estimating that CVD caused 17.3 million deaths globally. It accounted for 31.5% of all deaths and 45% of all non-communicable disease deaths, more than twice that caused by cancer, as well as more than all communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional disorders combined. The 2013 GBD also reported that CVD caused a greater number of deaths and was responsible for a greater percentage of all deaths than in 1990 when 12.3 million deaths were attributed to CVD, corresponding to 25.9% of total deaths.4 Previous publications in this series have reported that despite the decreases in CVD mortality in Europe more than 4 million people die from CVD across the continent every year, with more than 1.4 million dying prematurely, before the age of 75 years.1–3 In this article we present an updated overview of the burden of CVD in Europe, including new statistics for mortality, morbidity, and treatment. Where possible we provide statistics for all CVD and for coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke in particular. All data included here are updated from previous publications and we present prevalence statistics for the first time. This series of publications describing the current burden and distribution of CVD and CHD in Europe has been based on the European Cardiovascular Disease Statistics 2012 report,5 the fourth in a series of Europe-wide compendia, which was published jointly by the European Heart Network and the European Society of Cardiology. Throughout this article, we present statistics from a number of data sources chosen with consideration of data quality, date of most recent update, and coverage of the …