Cardiovascular disease remains a major health burden in the United States and worldwide. The statistics below describe deaths, prevalence, costs, heart attacks, stroke, cardiac arrest, and tobacco-related risk using the measurement periods reported by the American Heart Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Contents
- Cardiovascular disease in the United States
- What cardiovascular deaths include
- Heart attack and coronary heart disease
- Stroke statistics
- Cardiac arrest and survival
- Costs and health-system impact
- Smoking and cardiovascular risk
Cardiovascular disease in the United States
The AHA 2024 Statistics At-a-Glance reported 931,578 U.S. deaths from cardiovascular disease in 2021. That total describes deaths in a single calendar year, while the prevalence figures below describe adults during 2017–2020. These different periods should not be treated as a single-year trend.
Between 2017 and 2020, 127.9 million U.S. adults had some form of cardiovascular disease. This represented 48.6% of U.S. adults during that period. The same source reported particularly high prevalence among non-Hispanic Black adults: 59.0% among females and 58.9% among males.
The global burden was also substantial. Approximately 19.91 million people worldwide died from cardiovascular disease in 2021, according to the AHA 2024 Statistics At-a-Glance. The global figure and the U.S. figures use the same reported year but describe different populations.
The CDC Data Brief 557 reported an age-adjusted prevalence of heart disease of 11.3% among U.S. adults age 45 and older in 2024. This measure focuses on heart disease in an older adult population, so it is not directly interchangeable with the broader cardiovascular-disease prevalence estimate for all U.S. adults from 2017–2020.
What cardiovascular deaths include
Cardiovascular disease is a broad category rather than one diagnosis. In the AHA 2024 Statistics At-a-Glance breakdown of U.S. cardiovascular deaths in 2021, coronary heart disease accounted for 40.3%. Stroke accounted for 17.5%, while other cardiovascular diseases accounted for 17.1%.
High blood pressure accounted for 13.4% of U.S. cardiovascular deaths. Heart failure accounted for 9.1%, and diseases of the arteries accounted for 2.6%. These percentages show how several major conditions contribute to the overall cardiovascular total.
| Cause or category | Share of U.S. cardiovascular deaths, 2021 |
|---|---|
| Coronary heart disease | 40.3% |
| Stroke | 17.5% |
| Other cardiovascular diseases | 17.1% |
| High blood pressure | 13.4% |
| Heart failure | 9.1% |
| Diseases of the arteries | 2.6% |
The categories above are components of the AHA breakdown and should not be added to other statistics from different definitions or periods. The AHA source also reported 375,476 U.S. deaths from coronary heart disease in 2021, making it the largest named component in this breakdown.
Heart attack and coronary heart disease
The AHA 2024 Statistics At-a-Glance estimated 605,000 new heart attacks each year in the United States during 2005–2014. It also estimated 200,000 recurrent attacks each year during that period. These are annual incidence estimates tied to a historical measurement window, not current-year counts.
The average age at a first heart attack was 65.6 years for males and 72.0 years for females, according to the same source. The difference describes the reported averages; it does not establish the age at which every person experiences a first heart attack.
The AHA summarized the frequency of myocardial infarction as approximately one event in the United States about every 40 seconds. This is a rate expression associated with the cited statistics, while the 605,000 and 200,000 figures are annual estimates from 2005–2014.
Coronary heart disease mortality changed in different ways between 2011 and 2021. The annual death rate attributable to coronary heart disease declined 15.0%, but the actual number of coronary heart disease deaths increased 0.05%. A rate can move differently from an absolute count because the two measures account for population and age structure in different ways.
The estimated direct and indirect cost of heart disease was $252.2 billion in 2019–2020, according to the AHA 2024 Statistics At-a-Glance. This heart-disease estimate is narrower than the broader cardiovascular-disease cost total described below.
Stroke statistics
Stroke accounted for about one of every 21 U.S. deaths in 2021, according to the AHA 2024 Statistics At-a-Glance. Stroke caused 162,890 U.S. deaths that year, and the age-adjusted U.S. stroke death rate was 41.1 per 100,000.
The U.S. stroke death rate increased 8.4% from 2011 to 2021. Over the same comparison, the actual number of U.S. stroke deaths increased 26.3%. As with coronary heart disease, the rate and count are separate measures and should be read separately.
The AHA reported that someone in the United States died of stroke every 3 minutes 14 seconds on average in 2021. This time-based description and the 162,890-death count refer to the same reported year, but they present the burden in different formats.
Worldwide, stroke deaths totaled 7.44 million in 2021. Ischemic stroke caused 3.71 million of those deaths, intracerebral hemorrhage caused 3.38 million, and subarachnoid hemorrhage caused 0.36 million. These figures describe global stroke deaths by type and should not be substituted for the U.S. totals.
Cardiac arrest and survival
Underlying-cause sudden cardiac arrest mortality in the United States was 20,114 in 2021, according to the AHA 2024 Statistics At-a-Glance. Cardiac arrest is also reported through emergency medical services outcomes, which use a different population and measure.
Among adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in 2022, 72.1% occurred at home or a residence. Public settings accounted for 17.3%, and nursing homes accounted for 10.6%. These percentages describe where adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occurred.
Survival to hospital discharge for all emergency-medical-services-treated, non-traumatic adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrests was 9.3% in 2022. The outcome differed for cases with a witnessed event: survival was 14.0% when witnessed by a bystander and 17.0% when witnessed by a 9-1-1 responder.
| Adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrest measure | 2022 result |
|---|---|
| Occurred at home or residence | 72.1% |
| Occurred in a public setting | 17.3% |
| Occurred in a nursing home | 10.6% |
| Survival to discharge, all EMS-treated non-traumatic cases | 9.3% |
| Survival to discharge, bystander-witnessed cases | 14.0% |
| Survival to discharge, 9-1-1 responder-witnessed cases | 17.0% |
The location percentages describe occurrence, while the survival percentages describe hospital-discharge outcomes. They are related parts of the 2022 out-of-hospital cardiac-arrest picture but are not measures of the same denominator.
Costs and health-system impact
Direct and indirect cardiovascular-disease costs totaled $422.3 billion in 2019–2020, according to the AHA 2024 Statistics At-a-Glance. Direct cardiovascular-disease costs were $254.3 billion. Lost productivity and mortality costs were $168.0 billion.
The AHA reported that cardiovascular disease accounted for 12% of total U.S. health expenditures in 2019–2020. The direct-cost figure reflects spending associated with cardiovascular disease, while lost productivity and mortality costs capture a different part of the economic burden.
The $252.2 billion estimate for heart disease is a separate, narrower estimate from the $422.3 billion total for cardiovascular disease. Comparing them as though they use identical definitions would risk overstating or understating the relationship between the two measures.
Smoking and cardiovascular risk
Tobacco exposure contributes to cardiovascular risk at both global and U.S. scales. The AHA 2024 Statistics At-a-Glance attributed an estimated 7.43 million deaths worldwide to tobacco in 2021. The same source reported that more than 480,000 Americans die each year as a result of cigarette smoking and that more than 41,000 Americans die each year from secondhand smoke exposure.
In the cited meta-analysis summarized by the AHA, secondhand smoke exposure was associated with an 18% increased risk of total mortality. It was associated with a 23% increased risk of total cardiovascular disease and a 23% increased risk of coronary heart disease. The reported association with stroke was a 29% increased risk.
These percentages are associations from the cited meta-analysis, not guarantees that an individual exposed to secondhand smoke will experience a particular outcome. They also should not be interpreted as additional death counts to add to the tobacco-attributed totals.
Taken together, the cardiology statistics show several dimensions of cardiovascular health: widespread disease prevalence, a large annual death burden, distinct patterns for heart attack and stroke, low but measurable out-of-hospital cardiac-arrest survival, major economic costs, and tobacco-related risk. Each figure remains tied to its stated population, geography, definition, and measurement period.