COVID Toll: Big Jump in Cardiovascular-Related Deaths Reported by American Heart Association - SciTechDaily

While the pandemic’s effects on death rates may be noticed for several years, lessons learned offer major opportunities to address structural and societal issues that drive health disparities, according to Association leaders.

“We know that COVID-19 took a tremendous toll, and preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have shown that there was a substantial increase in the loss of lives from all causes since the start of the pandemic.

This year’s writing group made a concerted effort to gather information on specific social factors related to health risk and outcomes, including sexual orientation, gender identity, urbanization, and socioeconomic position,” Tsao said.

“As the U.S. prepares to celebrate the 60 th annual Heart Month in February 2023, it’s critical that we recognize and redouble the life-saving progress we’ve made in nearly a century of researching, advocating, and educating, while identifying and removing those barriers that still put certain people at disproportionately increased risk for cardiovascular disease,” Albert said.

“Tracking such trends is one of the reasons the American Heart Association publishes this definitive statistical update annually, providing a comprehensive resource of the most current data, relevant scientific findings, and assessment of the impact of cardiovascular disease nationally and globally.”

Tsao emphasized the importance of this surveillance as a critical resource for the lay public, policymakers, media professionals, clinicians, healthcare administrators, researchers, health advocates, and others seeking the best available data on these factors and conditions.