What is coronary heart disease?
Coronary heart disease, also known as ischemic heart disease, is the most common form of heart disease. There are two major clinical forms - heart attack (often known as acute myocardial infarction or AMI) and angina.
Key facts
| Prevalence - number of Australians with condition in 2004-05 |
637,900 |
| Incidence - number of events in 40-90 year olds in 2005 |
47,730 |
| Hospitalisations in 2006-07 |
162,328 |
| Deaths in 2006 |
22,983 |
Note: covers ICD-10 codes I20-I25
Did you know?
- Coronary heart disease kills more Australians than any other single disease: 22,983 deaths in 2006. This was 17% of all deaths.
- Falls in death rates from coronary heart disease since the 1970s are due to less heart attacks occurring and better survival. Age-standardised coronary heart disease death rates fell by 45% in males and 44% in females between 1996 and 2006.
- Older people get coronary heart disease much more commonly: 7.5% of Australians aged 55-64 years have coronary heart disease increasing to 20.3% for those aged 75 years or over.
- Men get coronary heart disease more commonly than women.
Further information
Publications showing detailed statistics (free full text)
Deaths from coronary heart disease, 2005 (1.5MB XLS)
Hospitalisations from coronary heart disease (hospital data cubes)
Risk factors for coronary heart disease