Trends in fatal and non-fatal coronary heart disease events in Finland during 1991-2001.
OBJECTIVE
To analyse the trends in fatal and non-fatal coronary heart disease (CHD) events in Finland during an 11-year period 1991-2001.


METHODS
Data on hospitalizations due to CHD in the Hospital Discharge Register were linked to the National Causes of Death Register in order to produce a Cardiovascular Disease Register including data on 271,771 events in 234,244 individuals.


RESULTS
The annual average decline in the age-standardized CHD mortality rate was 5.2% (95% CI, -5.6, -4.8%) among men and 6.1% (-6.6, -5.6%) among women. The incidence of first myocardial infarction declined annually on average by 5.5% (-5.9, -5.1%) from 1991 to 1997 and by 2.4% (-3.0, -1.7%) from 1998 to 2001 among men. The respective changes among women were -5.9% (-6.5, -5.2%) and -1.7% (-2.7, -0.6%). The number of hospitalizations due to unstable angina pectoris increased between 1991 and 1996 (p = 0.0002) and remained stable for the rest of the study period.


CONCLUSIONS
The Cardiovascular Disease Register is a powerful tool for epidemiological monitoring of cardiovascular diseases in Finland.
Pajunen
Pia
P
KTL-National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland. pia.pajunen@ktl.fi
Pääkkönen
Rauni
R
Juolevi
Anne
A
Hämäläinen
Helena
H
Keskimäki
Ilmo
I
Laatikainen
Tiina
T
Moltchanov
Vladislav
V
Niemi
Marja
M
Rintanen
Hannu
H
Salomaa
Veikko
V
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002423:Cause of Death / Q000639:trends; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D006306:Health Surveys; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012042:Registries