Fewer people with heart failure are dying from cardiac arrest than a generation ago, but new national data show those gains are not reaching all communities equally. Researchers using U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records from 1999 to 2023 found that the age‑adjusted mortality rate for heart failure–related cardiac arrest fell from 25.3 deaths per 100,000 adults to 20.6, with the sharpest decline seen before 2011.
Beneath that overall progress, however, are stark and persistent racial and ethnic disparities. Over the full study period, Black adults with heart failure had the highest cardiac arrest mortality rate, at 28.8 deaths per 100,000—well above Hispanic/Latino patients at 22.8, white patients at 19.5, and those in all other racial and ethnic categories at 18.1. The authors warn that rising mortality rates among men, Black individuals, and residents of rural areas “require our urgent attention” and call for targeted interventions and better healthcare access to close these gaps.
The study also underscores how the COVID‑19 pandemic briefly reversed years of improvement. Mortality rates plateaued after 2011, climbed between 2018 and 2021 as the pandemic disrupted care, then dropped again from 2021 to 2023 in what the researchers describe as a sign of recovery and improved access to services.
For minority and rural communities already facing higher risks, those disruptions added another layer of vulnerability on top of longstanding structural inequities.
See: “Fewer heart failure patients are dying from cardiac arrest—but disparities persist” (March 12, 2025)
