Heart attacks remain the leading cause of death worldwide. But since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital records in many countries have shown fewer people being treated for heart attacks. At first glance, this might look like a sign that fewer heart attacks are happening.
However, a new study from Mass General Brigham reveals a different and more troubling reality: heart-related deaths may have actually increased, just not where we expected them to.
Researchers wanted to find out if the drop in hospital-treated heart attacks meant fewer people were having them, or if it meant more people were dying at home instead of getting medical help.
The team, led by Dr. Jason H. Wasfy from Massachusetts General Hospital, examined data from over 127,000 death certificates in Massachusetts between 2020 and 2023. They compared the number of cardiac deaths during this period to data from before the pandemic, from 2014 to 2019.
They found that heart-related deaths were much higher than expected during the pandemic years. In 2020, cardiac deaths were 16% higher than usual. This trend continued into 2021 and 2022, with 17% more cardiac deaths than expected.
In 2023, although the rate dropped slightly, it was still 6% higher than the pre-pandemic average. What’s most striking is that this increase happened at the same time that hospitals were seeing fewer heart attack cases—suggesting that more people were dying at home without receiving life-saving care.
This mismatch between hospital data and death records reveals a serious problem. It suggests that many people either avoided going to the hospital when they had heart attack symptoms, or they didn’t receive the care they needed in time.
The pandemic disrupted many parts of the healthcare system, and it may have changed how people respond to emergencies. Some may have been afraid to go to the hospital due to COVID-19 fears, while others may have had trouble accessing care because of overwhelmed hospitals or cancelled appointments.
Dr. Wasfy explained that while official numbers showed fewer heart attacks in hospitals, they didn’t reflect what was happening outside hospital walls. When the researchers looked more closely at where people were dying, they saw that many more were dying at home from cardiac events.
Dr. John Hsu, another researcher on the study, added that health systems around the world have faced major challenges since 2020. This study shows that those challenges may have changed how patients seek care, and how well they survive serious health problems like heart attacks.
If the team hadn’t looked at death certificates and focused only on hospital data, these rising death rates might have been missed entirely.
The study, published in JAMA Network Open, raises important questions about how to better support people with heart disease during times of crisis and beyond.
It also highlights the need for public health efforts to encourage people to seek emergency care when they have symptoms of a heart attack—like chest pain, shortness of breath, or nausea. Many lives may depend on it.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that vitamin K helps cut heart disease risk by a third, and a year of exercise reversed worrisome heart failure.
For more health information, please see recent studies about supplements that could help prevent heart disease, stroke, and results showing this food ingredient may strongly increase heart disease death risk.
The research findings can be found in JAMA.
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