Key Statistics: Heart attack

A heart attack is a sudden blockage of the blood supply to an area of the heart. This means that the heart muscle isn’t getting the oxygen it needs to effectively pump blood to the rest of the body.

Prevalence¹

• 1.6 per cent of people experience a heart attack sometime in their lives
• Twice as many men experience heart attacks

Deaths​²

• It causes one in 20 deaths
• One person dies of a heart attack every 72 minutes
• There are 20 deaths each day due to heart attack

​​Hospitalisations³

• 157 people are hospitalised every day
• 91 per cent more males admitted, compared to females
• $680 million is spent on health care services, rising 3.6 per cent annually

References

1 Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018, National Health Survey 2017-18, Data customised using TableBuilder
2 Australian Bureau of Statistics 2019, Causes of death 2018, cat. No. 3303.0, September
3 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2019, National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD); Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2017, Health Expenditure database, custom data request