Canadian heart health trends

Canadian heart health trends

Keywords: Health, Canada

The Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation publishes an annual Report Card on Canadians' Heart Health, which summarises and tracks heart health trends in the country. The latest Report Card deals with trends from 1984 to 1997.

According to the report, there were 54,600 heart attacks in 1984 among people aged 25 to 74 and 41,400 in 1997. The number of deaths fell from 27,656 in 1984 to 21,962 in 1997. It is thought that survival rates may have increased because of newer clot-busting drugs and the fact that more people are getting the drugs within an hour of symptom onset.

However, William Tholl, national executive director for the foundation, said that although the fundamentals of the system are sound, there are four key problem areas. There is a need for more health promotion and disease prevention;improved surveillance to clarify just how well patients are managed in the system; better distribution of services so patients can get appropriate cardiac care regardless of where they live; and more research into the causes and cures of heart disease.

Also, although fewer Canadians are dying from first-time heart attacks, they may be at increased risk of recurrent ones. According to the report, 32 per cent of heart attack survivors in 1984 had subsequent attacks, compared with 36 per cent in 1997. It is not clear why there is an increase in recurrent heart attacks; it may be that more high-risk patients are surviving first attacks than in earlier decades. The report also found that among Canadians aged 35 to 64 with heart disease, more than 50 per cent are no longer working, 39 per cent describe their health as being "fair" or "poor," and 25 per cent report pain that restricts daily activity.