Abstract 17368: Years of Life Lost Due to Heart Failure in the United States (US)

Abstract

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a complicated syndrome where ~50% of patients die within 5 years of diagnosis. Years of life lost (YLL) is a population-based mortality indicator that takes into account age at death, giving greater weight to deaths occurring at a younger age and thereby providing information on mortality that is relevant to the entire population without the bias of elderly death. A YLL analysis was applied to patients with HF to illustrate the relationship between HF and premature mortality. Further YLL for HF was compared to other common elderly diseases. Methods: Data between 1999 and 2012 on the number of deaths attributed to HF and other conditions common in the elderly were from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Health Statistics online database; standard life-expectancy data for the US were from the World Health Organization global health observatory data repository. YLL was calculated from the number of deaths multiplied by years of life remaining based on a standard life expectancy at the age at which death occurs. Total YLL over all age groups was then divided by the total number of deaths for the mean YLL per HF patient. The same calculation was made for several other conditions for comparison. Results: A total of 804,095 US deaths were attributed to HF. The mean HF YLL was 9.64 years, which was higher than YLL calculated for osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s/other dementias (7.12 and 7.67 years, respectively; Figure) and similar to Parkinson’s disease (9.73 years). Conclusions: Analysis of premature mortality by YLL suggests that patients with HF would live on average 9.64 years longer had they not developed HF.