The Burden of Cardiovascular Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Black Diaspora

Abstract

For over four decades the National Medical Association (NMA) and the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC) have sought to bring to national attention the disparate burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) among African Americans. However, systematic inquiry has been inadequate into the burden of CVD in the poor countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the African diaspora in the Americas outside the USA. However, recently, the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) has offered new tools for such inquiry. Several initial efforts in that direction using 2010 data have been published. This article highlights some new findings for SSA for 2016. It also suggests that NMA and ABC further this effort by direct advocacy and collaboration with the GBD to make estimates of CVD burden in African Americans and South American Blacks explicitly available in future iterations.

Keywords: Africa south of the Sahara; Blacks; Cardiovascular diseases; Health status disparities.