Heart disease statistics down in Arkansas

The number of people living in Arkansas who report they have coronary heart disease declined slightly over five years according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report. The data come from CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a phone survey conducted each year of adults aged 18 and over.

Despite that decline, one in three deaths in the United States is due to heart disease. Heart disease kills roughly the same number of Americans each year as cancer, lower respiratory diseases (including pneumonia), and accidents combined.
From 2006 to 2010, the number of people in Arkansas who report they have been told by a health professional they have coronary heart disease declined from 7.7 percent to 7.1 percent.

The overall number of Americans who report they have coronary heart disease continued to decline from 6.7 percent in 2006 to 6 percent in 2010, but rates varied widely from state to state and by race and ethnicity, according to a new report published October 14, 2011 in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Arkansas was slightly above the national average.

The report also notes geographic differences in self-reported coronary heart disease. In 2010, coronary heart disease prevalence ranged from lows of 3.7 percent in Hawaii and 3.8 percent in the District of Columbia to highs of 8 percent in West Virginia and 8.2 percent in Kentucky. Generally, populations in Southern states reported the highest levels of coronary heart disease.

According to Namvar Zohoori, MD, PhD, MPH, chronic disease director, Arkansas Department of Health, “While the prevalence of coronary heart disease in Arkansas is slightly higher than that for the nation overall in 2010, it is heartening to see an almost 8 percent decline in recent years, similar to the 10 percent decline in the U.S. This indicates that our public health efforts to prevent and control risk factors and improve quality of care for Arkansans are in line with the declines seen across the nation.”

The report attributes the decline to a combination of reductions in prevalence of high risk populations for heart disease such as smokers, patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure, and uncontrolled high blood cholesterol along with improvements in treatments for heart disease.

“Where you live and how you live matters to your heart,” said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H . “The Million Hearts national initiative, which can prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes over the next five years, focuses on actions people can take themselves and actions that businesses, communities and health providers can take to prevent heart attacks and strokes today.”

Million Hearts seeks to improve clinical care by helping patients learn and follow their ABCS:

• Aspirin for people at risk
• Blood pressure control
• Cholesterol management
• Smoking cessation

Less than half of Americans who should be taking an aspirin a day are taking one; less than half of Americans with high blood pressure have it under control. Only one out of three Americans with high cholesterol is effectively treated, and less than a quarter of Americans who smoke get help to quit when they see their doctor.

“Even though the prevalence of coronary heart disease in Arkansas has declined over recent years, more work needs to be done to reduce Arkansas’s high prevalence of smoking, uncontrolled hypertension, cholesterol, obesity, physical inactivity and poverty, as well as limited access to medical care” said Zohoori.

More than 2 million heart attacks and strokes occur every year and treatment for these conditions and other vascular diseases account for approximately $1 of every $6 healthcare dollars.

The MMWR report on state coronary heart disease prevalence is available at www.cdc.gov/mmwr.

Million Hearts has a role for everyone, from consumers and health care providers to employers and communities. To learn more about Million Hearts and how to get involved, visit http://millionhearts.hhs.gov/about-mh.shtml.