The Incidence, Prevalence and Mortality of Ischemic Heart Disease in Alberta

• Author / Creator

  Wong, Zing-Wae

• In 2008, cardiovascular disease accounted for 29% of all deaths in Canada. Yet information on the incidence, prevalence, and mortality of IHD (ischemic heart disease) over time in Canada or in Alberta has not been fully organized or modeled systematically. An overall picture of IHD in the population should give policy-makers, researchers, and clinicians a greater understanding of the pattern and magnitude of the disease. This knowledge can then be used to organize health care resources, to define health priorities for specific regions, and to develop research.

  The two major questions were:
  1) What has been reported on the incidence, prevalence and mortality of IHD in Canada and in the provinces of Canada?
  2) Can existing publicly available Alberta data be organized and analyzed in a systematic fashion to provide policy makers insights on the incidence, prevalence, and mortality of IHD in Alberta?

  To fulfill the first aim of the paper, a systematic review of literature was conducted to find existing information on IHD in Canada and Alberta. The research revealed that hospital data was used as a proxy for incidence rates and that incidence rates were decreasing from 1975 to 2002. Vital statistics were used to determine mortality rates by review articles that reported decreasing mortality rates after the mid-1970’s. Prevalence of MI was reported to be higher in men than women by one study that used a self-administered survey in 2000/2001.

  This project modeled IHD incidence, prevalence, and mortality in Alberta using publicly available surveillance data from the Alberta Health web site. The dataset included patients who were Alberta residents. The analysis used a logistic regression, four independent variables (year, age groups, sex, and geography) as well as interactions among these four independent variables. Overall, incidence and mortality probabilities have decreased over time while prevalence probabilities showed signs of stabilizing over time. Males have higher incidence and mortality probabilities than females. Both sexes exhibited increases in incidence and prevalence with age. These findings show that current preventative and treatment measures are indeed decreasing IHD incidence and mortality in Alberta. Despite the indication of effective IHD health care measures, the South zone shows a statistically lower decline in mortality compared to other health zones. Further research might focus on the reasons behind this difference in mortality.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Ischemic heart disease
  • Surveillance
  • Canada

• Graduation date

  Fall 2015

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3GB1XT4W

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.