The following are five points to remember about the World Heart Federation’s vision for worldwide cardiovascular disease prevention:

1. Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is the world’s number one cause of death and disability, and disproportionately affects individuals living in low-income and middle-income countries.
2. Cardiovascular disease was recognized as common in high-income countries in the 1960s and 1970s, but the age-standardized 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. We need to build coalitions and partnerships across health disciplines, nonmedical and medical organizations, and governments for control of noncommunicable disease to reduce cardiovascular disease worldwide by 25% by 2025. We also need to vigorously enforce tobacco control, implement hypertension detection and control, and secondary prevention.
4. It would be helpful to develop efficient systems of integrated care with trained nonphysician health workers for hypertension detection and control, for secondary prevention in uncomplicated patients, and to counsel lifestyle modification.
5. Finally, we need to establish large population studies in different regions of the world as the types and patterns of diet, activity, alcohol consumption, and tobacco use vary by region; regional studies are essential to document their effect in each region.

Keywords: Alcohol Drinking, Cardiovascular Diseases, Cause of Death, Developed Countries, Diet, Government, Hypertension, Income, Life Style, Mortality, Poverty, Primary Prevention, Risk, Risk Factors, Secondary Prevention, Tobacco, Tobacco Use

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