Heart, stroke and vascular disease: Australian facts

What is heart failure and cardiomyopathy?

Heart failure occurs when the heart begins to function less effectively in pumping blood around the body. Heart failure can result from a variety of diseases and conditions that impair or overload the heart, including heart attack, high blood pressure, damaged heart valves or cardiomyopathy. 

Cardiomyopathy is where the entire heart muscle, or a large part of it, is weakened. Causes include coronary heart disease, hypertension, viral infections and alcohol consumption above guideline levels. Cardiomyopathy and heart failure commonly occur together.

People with mild heart failure may have few symptoms, but in more severe cases it can result in chronic tiredness, reduced capacity for physical activity and shortness of breath. While heart failure is usually not curable due to permanent heart damage, treatment can improve quality of life, reduce hospitalisations, and extend life.

How many Australians are living with heart failure?

Prevalence

An estimated 146,000 people aged 18 and over (0.7%) were living with heart failure, based on self-reported data from the ABS 2022–24 National Health Measures Survey (NHMS) (AIHW analysis of ABS 2025). 

Almost two-thirds (63%) of adults with heart failure (91,600 people) were aged 65 and over.

However, using self-reported data to estimate the number of people with heart failure underestimates the true burden, as the early stages of the disease are only mildly symptomatic, and a substantial proportion of cases are undiagnosed.

Age and sex

An estimated 84,800 men and 61,500 women aged 18 and over were living with heart failure in 2022–24, based on self-reported data from the NHMS. This corresponds to rates of 0.9% for men and 0.6% for women (AIHW analysis of ABS 2025). 

Hospitalisations

Heart failure and cardiomyopathy often occur alongside other chronic diseases, so both the principal and additional diagnoses of heart failure or cardiomyopathy should be counted when estimating their contribution to hospitalisations. As heart failure has historically been under recorded in hospital data and the accuracy of coding heart failure varies between Australian hospitals, it is likely that estimates are undercounts (Coory & Cornes 2005, Powell et al. 2000, Teng et al. 2008).

There were around 188,000 hospitalisations where heart failure or cardiomyopathy was recorded as the principal and/or additional diagnosis in 2023–24 – a rate of 698 per 100,000 population. This represents 1.5% of all hospitalisations in Australia.

Heart failure or cardiomyopathy was recorded as the principal diagnosis in 38% (71,200) of these hospitalisations.

In those cases where it was listed as an additional diagnosis, more than half (53%) had either a cardiovascular (30%) or respiratory disease (23%) listed as the principal diagnosis.

The most common principal diagnoses in these cases were:

• influenza or pneumonia (9.1% of hospitalisations)
• coronary heart disease (8.7%)
• chronic lower respiratory diseases (7.1%)
• atrial fibrillation or flutter (6.1%).

Age and sex

Where heart failure or cardiomyopathy was recorded as the principal and/or additional diagnosis, hospitalisation rates:

• were overall 1.4 times as high for males as females after adjusting for differences in the age structure of the populations
• increased with age, with rates highest for males and females aged 85 and over (Figure 1).

Trends

Between 2000–01 and 2023–24, there was a 31% reduction in the age-standardised rate of hospitalisations with a principal and/or additional diagnosis of heart failure or cardiomyopathy.

The decline was similar among males and females.

Variation by priority population groups

In 2023–24, age-standardised heart failure and cardiomyopathy hospitalisation rates were:

• 1.8 times as high for people living in the lowest socioeconomic areas compared with those in the highest socioeconomic areas.  The gap in hospitalisation rates between the lowest and highest socioeconomic areas was 1.7 times as high for males, and 1.9 times as high for females
• 1.7 times as high for those living Remote and very remote areas compared to Major cities. There were greater disparities in female rates (2.1 times as high) than male rates (1.4 times as high) and, in contrast to other remoteness areas, rates were higher among females than males in Remote and very remote Australia (Figure 2).

For information on First Nations people, see First Nations people. Data disaggregated by priority population groups are available in the supplementary data tables.

Deaths

Heart failure and cardiomyopathy contributed to around 27,600 deaths (15% of all deaths) in 2024, at a rate of 102 per 100,000 population. It was the underlying cause of around 5,200 deaths and was an associated cause in around 22,400 deaths.

Heart failure and cardiomyopathy are more likely to be listed as an associated cause of death. This is because it is often not heart failure or cardiomyopathy that leads directly to death – rather, one of their complications or comorbidities will be listed as the underlying cause of death on the death certificate.

When heart failure and cardiomyopathy are examined as an associated cause of death, the conditions most commonly listed as the underlying cause of death were: 

• coronary heart disease (17%)
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (8.7%)
• diabetes (5.7%)
• dementia including Alzheimer’s disease (5.3%)
• cardiac arrhythmias (5.0%).

Variation by priority population groups

In 2024, the age-standardised death rate for heart failure or cardiomyopathy as an underlying or associated cause was:

• 1.6 times as high for people living in the lowest socioeconomic areas compared with those living in the highest socioeconomic areas. The disparity was similar for males and females
• 1.6 times as high for people living in Remote and very remote areas compared to those living in Major cities. Males had higher heart failure and cardiomyopathy death rates than females in all remoteness areas.

For information on First Nations people, see First Nations people. Data disaggregated by priority population groups are available in the supplementary data tables.