A majority of adults in the U.S. — around 61% — are likely to be diagnosed with a form of cardiovascular disease by 2050, according to new American Heart Association data. The increased burden will cost the U.S. health system $1.8 trillion in the time frame.
Stroke is anticipated to see the largest increase in prevalence by 2050, according to a June 4 news release from the organization. Projections outlined in AHA data from two reports published in its flagship journal say stroke rates are likely to grow from 3.9% to 6.4%, affecting the health of 20 million adults.
Cardiovascular disease, including stroke, is expected to go from affecting 28 million adults to 45 million adults.
Hospitals should take steps to put funding and resources behind the issue now, Dhruv Kazi, MD, an American Heart Association volunteer and vice chair of the group that prepared the reports, told Becker's.
Dr. Kazi said there are largely three key aspects driving the increase in the nation's cardiovascular disease burden:
- One factor is the increased prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in young adults. This includes young adults who are in adolescence, a group for which obesity and Type 2 diabetes is already climbing in. These young adults then have a lifetime of risk and potential healthcare-associated costs ahead of them.
- The second factor is the fact that with a large aging population, there is an increased risk of both cardiovascular disease and stroke.
- The third factor is increasing population diversity. Dr. Kazi said certain sections of the U.S. population have a higher burden of cardiovascular disease and it is growing at a faster rate for some groups rather than others. For instance, the Hispanic population has seen increases, as have Asian Americans. With the changing composition of the population, risk factors, health needs and disease burdens will also shift, he said.
"All three of these factors are linked together to get us to a place where we're expecting a tsunami, as it were, of cardiovascular risk factors and disease and related causes," Dr. Kazi said.
Hospitals and health systems that fail to act and "see the writing on the wall" now could face "getting left behind" as 2050 nears, he said.
"I think part of the challenge with hospital systems and health systems broadly today is that they serve different types of patients. These are patients for whom they're fully responsible, including any risk of cardiovascular events, and others that are served on a fee-for-service basis," Dr. Kazi said. "As we move to more integrated payment models where hospitals and health systems are bearing larger portions of the financial risk, it will become financially and ethically imperative that they start investing in prevention."
Dr. Kazi said he does not "at all underestimate the financial pressures that many of the hospital C-suite executives are facing right now." However, he added that "as you plan for the next three decades, as you look forward into the future, hospitals that don't invest in their communities — and particularly don't invest in prevention in the communities — are going to get left behind."