Australian health policy can and should address, as a core aim, cardiovascular health in less economically advanced nations
Cardiovascular diseases have snatched the mantle of top-priority global health problem from infectious diseases including tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS. This is because of the deaths attributable to cardiovascular diseases, the years of life lost, and the longer-term disability from heart failure and stroke.1 While deaths due to cardiovascular diseases among people younger than 65 years have fallen dramatically in the past 50 years in Australia, in less economically advanced communities one-third of these deaths occur among people younger than 65 years.2
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