Summary Each year, the American Heart Association (AHA), in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and other government agencies, brings together the most up-to-date statistics on heart disease, stroke, other vascular diseases, and their risk factors and presents them in its Heart Disease and Stroke Statistical Update. The Statistical Update is a valuable resource for researchers, clinicians, healthcare policy makers, media professionals, the lay public, and many others who seek the best national data available on disease morbidity and mortality and the risks, quality of care, medical procedures and operations, and costs associated with the management of these diseases in a single document. Indeed, since 1999, the Statistical Update has been cited more than 8700 times in the literature (including citations of all annual versions). In 2009 alone, the various Statistical Updates were cited ≈1600 times (data from ISI Web of Science). In recent years, the Statistical Update has undergone some major changes with the addition of new chapters and major updates across multiple areas. For this year’s edition, the Statistics Committee, which produces the document for the AHA, updated all of the current chapters with the most recent nationally representative data and inclusion of relevant articles from the literature over the past year and added a new chapter detailing how family history and genetics play a role in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Also, the 2011 Statistical Update is a major source for monitoring both cardiovascular health and disease in the population, with a focus on progress toward achievement of the AHA’s 2020 Impact Goals. Below are a few highlights from this year’s Update. Death Rates From CVD Have Declined, Yet the Burden of Disease Remains High The 2007 overall death rate from CVD (International Classification of Diseases 10, I00–I99) was 251.2 per 100 000. The rates were 294.0 per 100 000 for white males, 405.9 per 100 000 for black males, 205.7 per 100 000 for white females, and 286.1 per 100 000 for black females. From 1997 to 2007, the death rate from CVD declined 27.8%. Mortality data for 2007 show that CVD (I00–I99; Q20–Q28) accounted for 33.6% (813 804) of all 2 243 712 deaths in 2007, or 1 of every 2.9 deaths in the United States. On the basis of 2007 mortality rate data, more than 2200 Americans die of CVD each day, an average of 1 death every 39 seconds. More than 150 000 Americans killed by CVD (I00–I99) in 2007 were <65 years of age. In 2007, nearly 33% of deaths due to CVD occurred before the age of 75 years, which is well before the average life expectancy of 77.9 years. Coronary heart disease caused ≈1 of every 6 deaths in the United States in 2007. Coronary heart disease mortality in 2007 was 406 351. Each year, an estimated 785 000 Americans will have a new coronary attack, and ≈470 000 will have a recurrent attack. It is estimated that an additional 195 000 silent first myocardial infarctions occur each year. Ap...

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The authors examined national changes in socioeconomic differentials in mortality for middle-aged and older white men and women in the United States with the use of 1960 data from the Matched Records Study and 1971-1984 data from the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES I) Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (NHEFS). In 1960, there was little difference in mortality by educational level among middle-aged and older men. Since 1960, death rates among men declined more rapidly for the more educated than the less educated, which resulted in substantial educational differentials in mortality in 1971-1984. In contrast, among women, death rates declined at about the same rate regardless of educational attainment, so that a strong inverse relation between education and mortality in 1960 remained about the same magnitude during 1971-1984. Trends in educational differentials for heart disease mortality are responsible for much of the change for all causes of death. Relative risk estimates based on the NHEFS indicate that after taking into account selected baseline risk factors the least educated are still at substantially elevated risk of death from heart disease, ranging from a relative risk of 1.38 for men aged 65-74 years at baseline to 2.27 for men aged 45-64 years. Reasons for the observed educational differentials and their changes over time are not easily explained and are likely to be multifactorial.