AHA Stats Show CV Health of Americans Remains Dire
This year’s report shows risk factors on the rise, enduring racial and geographic gaps, and clues to the global picture, too.

Heart disease remains the number one killer of people in the United States, according to the latest statistical update from the American Heart Association (AHA).
The mortality risk attributable to cardiovascular disease doesn’t affect everybody equally, however. People living in Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Alabama have the highest risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, while those in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Colorado face the lowest risks.
Overall, the age-adjusted mortality rate from cardiovascular disease was 224.3 per 100,000 people, a risk that was more pronounced in men than in women (273.9 vs 183.1 deaths per 100,000, respectively). Deaths from cardiovascular disease affected non-Hispanic Black males the most (379.7 deaths per 100,000), while the lowest mortality rate was seen in non-Hispanic Asian females (104.9 deaths per 100,000).
Seth Martin, MD (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD), who chaired the AHA writing group, said that after decades of declines, cardiovascular disease mortality began a slow creep upward starting around 2010, levelling off around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Then with the pandemic, it seemed like we had another setback where not only overall deaths from cardiovascular disease had increased, but also age-adjusted mortality had increased as well,” Martin told TCTMD. “I have the sense now, from our latest mortality statistics, that we hopefully are bending the curve downward again, but we have some strong currents working against us.”
Those “currents” include staggering percentages of Americans with unchecked risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Between 2017 and 2020, nearly 42% of the US (108 million Americans) met criteria for obesity and 47% had high blood pressure (122 million). More than 70% of the US population is either overweight or obese, and 39 million people in the US have diabetes. The AHA projects that more than 80 million Americans could have diabetes by 2050 if current trends continue unabated.
“We’ve had progress with cholesterol and smoking rates,” thanks to anti-tobacco campaigns and safe cholesterol-lowering medications, “but the obesity and diabetes epidemics are really challenging,” said Martin, noting that lifestyle changes can be difficult to alter because they are shaped by the built environment and food system.
The prevalence of obesity is highest in non-Hispanic Black females (57.9%), as is the prevalence of hypertension (58.4%). Asian American men have the lowest prevalence of obesity compared with other groups—17.6% versus 43.1% in non-Hispanic white men—but have a higher burden of diabetes relative to other groups.
Dhruv Kazi, MD (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA), who wrote an editorial accompanying the report, said “now is the time to go all in on obesity prevention and treatment.”
“The arrival of transformative weight-management therapies and a renewed focus on nutrition has given us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix the obesity epidemic,” he writes. “However, for these therapies to reach their full public health potential, they have to be paired with equitable access to weight-management programs and broad economic policy changes that make healthy foods the default choice.”
Half the Population at Risk
Based on the latest available data, a little under half of the US population, or 128 million adults, had some form of cardiovascular disease, which includes coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, and hypertension. Taking hypertension out of the equation, roughly one out of every 10 US adults is affected.
The AHA update also paints a gloomy picture of cardiovascular health in young people. One in five children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 years have obesity, but the problem is especially grim in non-Hispanic Black females and Hispanic Black males, in whom the prevalence of obesity is roughly 30%. Nearly 40% of all US children are at an unhealthy weight, which is currently defined by a body mass index ≥ 85th percentile.
Martin said the childhood obesity numbers are “staggering” and stressed the need for long-term investments to promote better habits and health for this generation. In general, the cardiovascular state of the union is “concerning across the board” and there is a lot of work to do in terms of improving the numbers, said Martin. For individual physicians and cardiologists, that may seem daunting, but he said that every healthcare provider can make a difference.
“I think the numbers, whether we look at cardiovascular disease mortality, the risk factors, or the disparities, are truly alarming,” said Martin. “I would encourage folks to ask the question: what can I do to improve these numbers? Whether I’m a cardiologist, another clinician, whether I’m a public health leader or if I work health policy, what can I do in my sphere of influence to address these numbers? Because this is obviously going to take a huge team effort to turn the tide.”
In 2020-2021, $417.9 billion was spent on healthcare related to cardiovascular disease, a figure that accounts for 11% of total US healthcare spending.
Global Data
The latest AHA statistics, which were published this week in Circulation, also provided a global focus where data were available. Worldwide, the age-standardized mortality rate from cardiovascular disease was 235.2 per 100,000 people, a rate that declined from 2010 to 2021. Significant global disparities were noted, too, with the highest mortality rates seen in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, as well as in Oceania, North Africa, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa.
Roughly 27% of deaths were attributable to cardiovascular disease, “making it the predominant cause of death globally,” the AHA experts note.
Michael O’Riordan is the Managing Editor for TCTMD. He completed his undergraduate degrees at Queen’s University in Kingston, ON, and…
Read Full BioSources
Martin SS, Aday AW, Allen NB, et al. 2025 heart disease and stroke statistics: a report of the US and global data from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2025;151:e1-e620.
Kazi DS. State of the heart (and brain) in 2025. Circulation. 2025;Epub ahead of print.
Disclosures
- Martin reports consulting for and/or serving on advisory boards for Amgen, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, and Chroma.
- Kazi reports no relevant conflicts of interest.
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