Cardiovascular Disease in Saudi Arabia: Facts and the Way Forward

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) remain a major health concern globally. While some risk factors for CVDs are non-modifiable, other determinants like obesity, hypertension, type-2 diabetes and dyslipidemia can be mitigated by a wide plethora of measures to control CVD morbidity and mortality. Those determinants have been on the rise in Saudi Arabia, exacerbated by sedentary lifestyle. The Saudi Vision 2030 aims to reduce CVD clinical and economic burden and to scale up vitality and longevity; in a new era of comprehensive healthcare. From a health economics standpoint, CVDs entail a burden on healthcare systems directly through expenditure and indirectly through years living with the disease, low productivity, premature morbidity and mortality. This manuscript reviews current CV health and unmet needs in Saudi Arabia, discusses G20 countries' initiatives on primary prevention: public health measures, awareness programs; and proposes national registries and digital solutions to facilitate population-specific research, improve CV surveillance and alleviate CVD burden in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: Cardiovascular disease; Cardiovascular risk factors; Prevention; Saudi Arabia; Saudi Vision 2030.

Fig. 1. Prevalence of CV risk enhancers in Saudi Arabia

Investigator-reported data was collected in 2017 in primary care facilities. Around 50% of subjects had more than 3 CV risk factors. Self-reported data were extracted from the ABSHER platform in 2021, according to self-administered questionnaires completed by 713,094 participants. Despite the very large sample from the ABSHER platform, figures might be underestimated due to the nature of self-reported data.

Fig. 2. Healthcare hierarchy in Saudi Arabia

There are a total of 2244 primary care centers in charge of basic curative, preventive and health promotive services. Patients requiring more advanced medical care are referred to one of the 292 MOH hospitals (secondary and tertiary level). The fourth level includes medical cities that only receive a very selected population of patients referred from tertiary care centers or from outside the referral system [75,76].