UK heart failure incidence falls by 7% but poorest most likely to be diagnosed

The population-based study used electronic health records for 4 million individuals between Jan 1 2002 and Dec 31, 2014.

Despite the overall fall in heart failure incidence rates, the total number of new heart failure diagnoses increased by 12% due to increases in population size and age.

From 2002 to 2014, heart failure incidence (standardised by age and sex) decreased, similarly for men and women, by 7%.

Although prevention is often touted as a means to combat heart failure, effective prevention strategies have clearly not been widely embraced, suggesting that the approach to prevention also needs to evolve

Individuals from socioeconomically deprived backgrounds were shown to be more likely to develop heart failure than those from the most affluent group in the study, and did so earlier in life with a greater number of comorbidities. The gap in heart failure incidence between deprived and affluent individuals widened over the course of the study.

Faiez Zannad, Professor of Therapeutics and Cardiology, called the heart failure incidence data a “cause for concern”, and suggested that “effective prevention strategies have clearly not been widely embraced”.

Visit the Lancet to view the full study.