Analysis by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Scotland points to the first sustained increase in cardiovascular death rates among working-age adults “in at least a generation”.
The rate stood at 68 cardiovascular deaths per 100,000 in 2023, compared with 60 deaths per 100,000 in 2019.
In all, 2,324 working-age adults (those aged 20-64) died from cardiovascular disease in 2023 compared with 2,032 in 2019, an increase of 14%.
This means an average of 45 working-age adults died each week from the disease in 2023 compared to 39 in 2019.
The BHF said the increase comes after successive decades of progress, which have seen deaths each year from conditions like heart attack and stroke “nearly halve” since the 1960s.
The charity has launched a new strategy calling for a bold “reimagining” of the way the…