Cardiac Deaths Remain Elevated Since 2020

WEDNESDAY, June 4, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Cardiac deaths increased substantially starting in 2020, according to a research letter published online May 30 in JAMA Network Open.

Jason H. Wasfy, M.D., from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues described monthly and annual population-based cardiac mortality rates using state death certificate data and reported actual and estimated expected monthly cardiac death rates during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis included death certificate data for 127,746 Massachusetts decedents (January 2014 to July 2024). As of mid-2024, some monthly rates remained elevated.

The researchers found that annual observed cardiac mortality exceeded expected from 2020 to 2023: 16 percent higher in 2020, 17 percent higher in 2021 and 2022, and 6 percent higher in 2023. Cardiac mortality rates exceeded expected for deaths both at home (between 2020 and 2022) and for deaths in hospitals (between 2020 and 2023).

“Lots of reports have shown that there have been fewer heart attacks in hospitals since 2020—but something seems to be missing from that data,” Wasfy said in a statement. “We now show that if you account for deaths at home, cardiac deaths are going up and have stayed up for years. Today there are a lot more people having cardiac deaths at home, which also raises the concern that people with heart disease haven’t been getting the care they need since the pandemic.”

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