Korea Heart Disease Fact Sheet 2020: Analysis of Nationwide Data

Author's summary The Korean Society of Cardiology has recently published the Korea Heart Disease Fact Sheet 2020 to provide overview of the cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden and its temporal changes. CVD mortality, hospitalization, and risk factor distributions were analyzed from nationwide databases. Over the last decade, CVD mortality and hospitalization have increased, while their age-standardized rates have declined. In addition, a considerable proportion of adults had multiple risk factors, which markedly increased with older age. Thus, concerted efforts should be continued to address the rising burden of CVD in Korea.
Background and Objectives Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. To provide an overview of the temporal trends in the burden of CVD, the Korean Society of Cardiology has published the Korea Heart Disease Fact Sheet in 2020. Methods We analyzed anonymized data of the Causes of Death Statistics, National Health Insurance Claims Database, and Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to assess mortality, hospitalizations, and risk factors for CVD. Results The CVD mortality decreased until 2010, then steadily increased up to 123 per 100,000 persons in 2018. Since 2002, the number and rate of CVD hospitalization have continued to grow. In 2018, approximately 12.1 million Korean adults had hypertension, 4.3 million had diabetes, 8.7 million had hypercholesterolemia, 14.9 million had obesity, and 8.8 million were currently smoking. The number of risk factors increased markedly with older age; 58.4% of adults age ≥70 years had ≥2 risk factors. Conclusions CVD mortality and hospitalization have gradually increased in the last decade, and a substantially high proportion of adults were carrying more than 1 cardiovascular risk factor in 2018. With the rapid population aging, a continued increase in CVD appears inevitable in Korea. Concerted and sustained approaches are essential to achieve early prevention and reduce the burden of CVD.