Office of Primary Care and Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Program

Andrew Wilcock, Ph.D., adjunct assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine and a visiting fellow at Harvard Medical School

(AUGUST 11, 2024) A study led by Andrew Wilcock, Ph.D., adjunct assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine and a visiting fellow at Harvard Medical School, suggests reasons for the continuing drop in hospital admissions for heart attacks, or acute myocardial infarction (AMI), in the U.S., Yahoo News reports.

The COVID-19 pandemic heralded a 35 percent drop in hospital admissions for heart attacks in the U.S.—but even now, that rate is continuing to fall. Why?

New research published in the journal JAMA Cardiology suggests that, although people avoiding medical care during the pandemic contributed to the decline in the short term, better heart-attack prevention is the bigger reason for this downward trend.

“Although there were more deaths overall during the pandemic, we have to appreciate that only some of those patients would have had an AMI over the same time period,” said Wilcock, first author on the study.

Even after pandemic-related restrictions were lifted, AMI visits and hospitalizations stayed lower than they had been before the pandemic. This reflects a broader and sustained decline in heart-attack rates. The researchers propose a combination of reasons for this trend, including that fewer people are smoking, people may be eating healthier, and there is better treatment for underlying conditions such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

“It’s not just one thing, but a constellation of factors,” Wilcock said. “Lifestyle changes and better drugs are compelling explanations for the downward trend in AMI hospitalizations.”

This research was also covered by ReachMD.