Director of Public Health Annual Report 2022: Preventing heart disease and stroke in Buckinghamshire

Cardiovascular disease is a significant cause of ill health and death in Buckinghamshire and is the largest contributor to the gap in life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas is Buckinghamshire.

Men born today in the least deprived area of Buckinghamshire can expect to live for 6.5 years longer than men born in the most deprived areas.[146] For women, the gap in life expectancy is 6.4 years.

Cardiovascular diseases (called circulatory diseases in the chart on the next page) explain a quarter (24.6%) of the gap in life expectancy between men living in the most deprived fifth (quintile) of areas of Buckinghamshire and those living in the least deprived fifth (Segment Tool Update 2017-19 - OHID South East).

For women, cardiovascular diseases explain 20.5% of the gap in life expectancy between the most deprived fifth compare with the least deprived fifth.

The chart below shows the breakdown of the life expectancy gap in Buckinghamshire by cause of death 2017-19 (see Figure 3).

During the pandemic COVID was a significant contributor to the gap in life expectancy but cardiovascular disease remained very important (see Figure 4).

Figure 3: Chart showing the breakdown of life expectancy gap between the most deprived and least deprived quintiles of Buckinghamshire by broad cause of death for 2017 to 2019.

Figure 4: Chart showing the breakdown of life expectancy gap between the most deprived and least deprived quintiles of Buckinghamshire by broad cause of death for 2020 to 2021 (provisional).