28 - 31 August / Munich - Germany
18 - 20 February / Milan - Italy
19-20 March / Seville - Spain
11-13 April / Helsinki - Finland
15- 17 April / Lisbon - Portugal
17 - 19 April / Leuven - Belgium
22-25 May / London - UK
11 - 12 June / Sophia Antipolis - France
4-5 Jun / Porto - Portugal
12 - 13 November / Basel - Switzerland
3 - 5 December / Milan, Italy
To improve understanding of the burden of CVD, the ESC collects cardiovascular data from across its 57 members countries through its ESC Atlas of Cardiology. The ESC Atlas of Cardiology provides figures illustrating the current impact of cardiovascular disease on our population and data on risk factors and their geographic distribution.
Delve deeper with the experts
The societal impact of cardiovascular disease is huge, constituting the leading cause of global mortality. Apart from its devastating human toll, it bears a substantial financial cost. The Oxford-ESC Burden of Cardiovascular Disease is an important project, revealing the economic burden in the member countries of the ESC.
The project has been running since 2020 and provides a clear insight into both healthcare costs and the social cost of CVD, using the latest data available. It's goal is to provide solid evidence to all stakeholders involved in healthcare policy and implementation, including industry, policy-makers, healthcare managers, clinicians and patients. These insights will be critical in driving the need to create sustained EU and national level CV health plans to secure funding investment and CV health policies that will save lives and ultimately reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease.
Results from the Burden of Disease study were presented as part of the Late Breaking Science Programme at ESC Congress 2023, and two abstracts based on the Burden of Disease findings were also presented.
The Burden of Cardiovascular Disease project has been developed in collaboration with Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford and the ESC, uniting two academic bodies in health economics and cardiology.
In the past 50 years, the development and implementation of better treatments, combined with improvements in clinical settings and preventative strategies have resulted in a significant reduction in CVD mortality. Despite these huge advances in cardiovascular medicine, cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a major social and economic challenge in Europe:
To demonstrate the need for policy action, ESC Advocacy uses ESC Atlas of Cardiology data to produce the ESC Cardiovascular Realities 2024 publication and a series of accompanying infographics, revealing wide geographic disparities and social inequalities. ESC Advocacy will continue to use Atlas data to raise the cardiovascular health profile on the EU policy agenda.
Cardiovascular disease is often thought to be more of a male problem. However, it is the leading cause of death in women worldwide. Because symptoms of cardiovascular disease in women can differ from those in men, we are confronted with gender disparities, with CVD in women being understudied, underdiagnosed, and undertreated. It is necessary to:
The Burden of Disease Task Force Chair
