ESC Atlas of Cardiology

What is the ESC Atlas of Cardiology?

Despite enormous advances in cardiovascular medicine, cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the world's biggest killer.

To better understand why this is the case and how we can reduce CVD mortality, since 2015 the ESC has been collecting, analysing and reporting on cardiovascular data from across ESC member countries via its 'Atlas of Cardiology'.

With more than 300 variables pertaining to CVD risk factors, morbidity, mortality and CVD management, the ESC Atlas is a rich data source with a unique focus on Europe and the Mediterranean basin.

Free access eAtlas – your cardiovascular data hub

eAtlas – the ESC Atlas of Cardiology website maps the main national and European health policy institutions and health care policies and identifies gaps and disparities in cardiac care. It provides robust data for academics, as well as budget owners and decision-makers who can advance population health at a national and international level.

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To complement the compendium with subspecialty data, data specific to heart failure and interventional data are included through the collaboration of the ESC's Heart Failure Association and the European Association for Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions.

Visit ESC Atlas in Heart Failure

Visit ESC Atlas in Interventional Cardiology

ESC Cardiovascular Realities 2024

ESC Cardiovascular Realities 2024 is a unique publication that presents data from ESC Atlas, providing compelling arguments for increasing action to support cardiovascular health policy. This booklet is essential reading for anyone involved in healthcare policy and budget allocation. It includes comprehensive CVD data from the ESC Atlas of Cardiology covering risk factors, health behaviours, access to healthcare and the cost of CVD to the economy in all ESC member countries.

Read ESC Cardiovascular Realities 2024

Read EU 27 Cardiovascular Realities 2025

Previous editions

What does the ESC Atlas tell us?

European Heart Journal publication

An analysis of ESC Atlas of Cardiology data was published in the European Heart Journal in May 2026.

Read the ESC Cardiovascular Disease Statistics 2025.

Key messages from the latest ESC Atlas of Cardiology datasets

CVD remains a leading health challenge in ESC member countries, responsible for more than 3 million deaths — equivalent to 355 deaths every hour.
While more men than women die prematurely from CVD overall, financial deprivation affects women more severely. Only 7% of women's CVD deaths are premature in high-income countries, compared with 25% in middle-income countries.
The rate of healthy life-years lost due to CVD is triple in middle-income compared with high-income countries, underscoring the need for stronger health system investment and more equitable service provision.
The rate of healthy life-years lost due to CVD attributable to particulate-matter air pollution is 9 times higher in middle-income countries than in high-income countries.
Females comprised 50% of cardiologists working in middle-income countries but representation was markedly lower in high-income countries (31.3%). Underrepresentation was even more pronounced in specialized fields: women accounted for just 11.5% of interventional cardiologists and only 8.8% of cardiac surgeons.
Access to structural heart interventions remains highly unequal. TAVI rates in middle-income countries were more than 13 times lower than in high-income countries, and transcatheter mitral and tricuspid interventions were extremely low in middle-income countries.

The previous analyses of CVD statistics from the ESC Atlas of Cardiology have been published in the European Heart Journal:

ESC Atlas 4th edition: Released in December 2024. Read ESC CVD Statistics 2024
ESC Atlas 3rd edition: Released in December 2021. Read ESC CVD Statistics 2021
ESC Atlas 2nd edition: released in December 2019. Read ESC CVD Statistics 2019
ESC Atlas 1st edition: released in November 2017. Read ESC CVD Statistics 2017

Atlas Infographics

The six infographics in the series "Cardiovascular Realities in Europe" present key findings, revealing wide gender and geographic disparities and inequalities.

Data is collected from the ESC Atlas paper and presented in an easily accessible format by theme:

Risk Factors: smoking prevalence and raised blood pressure
Premature Deaths
Number of Cardiologists
Number of Pacemaker Implantations
Number of Heart Transplants
Rise of Obesity

Risk Factors

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Premature Deaths

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Number of Cardiologists

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Number of Pacemaker Implantations

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Heart Transplants

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Rise of Obesity

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Why ESC Atlas

The ESC Atlas maps, analyses and compares from a cardiovascular perspective, the status of the healthcare systems in more than 57 countries in ESC member countries. It presents evidence of trends, disparities, gaps and associations between fundamental variables, which can be used to elicit valuable insights for evidence-based health policy in cardiology.

The ESC Atlas reveals the serious disparities in service provision and cardiovascular outcomes across systems, as well as significant issues in health care management and many other gaps existing in Europe. All data converge to reinforce the need to make cardiovascular disease the number one health priority for any decision maker.

The ESC Atlas of Cardiology helps the ESC to better fulfil its mission

The ESC Atlas of Cardiology provides the ESC and our institutional members with a wealth of robust evidence, analyses and comparisons. It will inform new and stronger ESC recommendations as well as calls for action, supporting our efforts to shape cardiovascular policy and, regulation. The ESC and our participating member societies will provide key decision-makers with better elements than ever before that will inevitably influence the allocation of funds for prevention, treatment, education and research.

The ESC Atlas of Cardiology serves to reinforce the ESC and participating member societies' unified call for harmonisation of standards of care to achieve the best possible patient outcomes across Europe.