The World Heart Federation's vision for worldwide cardiovascular disease prevention

Cardiovascular disease was recognised as common in high-income countries in the 1960s and 1970s, 2 but the age-standardised mortality from cardiovascular disease has halved since then, through better prevention (such as lifestyle changes and risk factor control) and wider use of simple but effective treatments for acute events and secondary prevention. 3 However, the use of these proven strategies, even in wealthy countries, is far from optimum and more widespread implementation could further reduce the rates of cardiovascular disease in the next two decades in most high-income countries.