Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk assessment (PI20)
This indicator is the proportion of First Nations regular clients aged 35–74 with no known history of CVD who had the necessary risk factors recorded within the previous 24 months to assess their absolute CVD risk.
PI20 is collected for males and females in age groups:
- 35–44
- 45–54
- 55–64
- 65–74.
While another CVD-related indicator (on CVD risk assessment result, PI21) is collected, results for that indicator will not be published until the specifications and the risk calculators used in the CIS are adjusted to align with revised guidelines (see also Interpreting nKPI data).
Why CVD risk assessment is important
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) includes a range of conditions that affect the heart and blood vessels. The most common and serious types of CVD include coronary heart disease, stroke and heart failure.
Absolute CVD risk assessment combines risk factors to calculate the probability that an individual will develop a cardiovascular event or other vascular disease within a specified time frame (usually 5 years).
Although age‐standardised CVD mortality for First Nations people has fallen over the past few decades, CVD remains a major contributor to preventable morbidity and mortality in First Nations people (Agostino et al. 2020; AIHW 2024).
At June 2025, 55% of (or around 65,000) First Nations regular clients aged 35–74 with no known history of CVD had the necessary risk factors recorded within the previous 24 months to assess their absolute CVD risk (Figure 25).
The data visualisation below (Figure 25) shows, for each collection period from June 2017 to June 2025, the proportion of First Nations regular clients aged 35–74 with no known history of CVD who had the necessary risk factors recorded within the previous 24 months to assess their absolute CVD risk. Select by either:
- organisation type
- remoteness
- state/territory
- age group/sex
to see data for that breakdown.
Data tables supporting this visualisation are available at Data.
Figure 25: CVD risk assessment by collection period
Overall, the proportion of First Nations regular clients aged 35–74 with no known history of CVD who had the necessary risk factors recorded within the previous 24 months to assess their absolute CVD risk generally increased between December 2022 and June 2025.
Notes
- Breaks are included to separate out the periods most affected by voluntary reporting and the peak of COVID-19 and associated emergency response measures. This break, however, is not a clean break as each indicator in the nKPI collection has an assigned time frame (a reference period) as part of its specification. For this indicator, which has a reference period of 24 months, data in collection periods for December 2022 (covering 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2022), June 2023 (covering 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2023) and December 2023 (covering 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2023) still overlap with the peak of COVID-19 and associated emergency response measures. For more information see Comparisons over time.
- The linear trend lines provide a general impression of the direction of the data. Caution should be taken interpreting trends with less than 5 data points. See also Figure 20 for trends for selected data.
- For more information, including on interpreting changes over time, see Technical notes.
References
Agostino J, Wong D, Paige E, Wade V, Connell C, Davey ME, Peiris DP, Fitzsimmons D, Burgess CP, Mahoney R, Lonsdale E, Fernando P, Malamoo L, Eades S, Brown A, Jennings G, Lovett RW and Banks E (2020) 'Cardiovascular disease risk assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults aged under 35 years: a consensus statement', Medical Journal of Australia, 212(9):422–427, doi:10.5694/mja2.50529, accessed 17 October 2025.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024) Heart, stroke and vascular disease: Australian facts, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 17 October 2025.