Heart disease advances haven’t reached America’s poor
“Americans have made major strides in reducing heart disease, but two new studies suggest one group — the poor — still lags behind. Risk of heart disease among middle-class and rich Americans declined 20 percent between 1999 and 2014, researchers said. But those levels changed little among the poor, who are as likely to have high blood pressure, to smoke and have other risk factors for heart disease and stroke as they did 15 or 20 years ago, the researchers found. ‘Adults in all income strata have not benefited equally from efforts to improve control of cardiovascular risk factors in the United States,’ said Dr. Ayodele Odutayo, lead researcher of one of the studies.”