Key statistics: Heart attack

Statistics and information on heart attack in Australia

Heart attack

A heart attack is a sudden loss of the blood supply to an area of the heart, usually due to blockage of an artery.

This means that the heart muscle isn’t getting the blood and oxygen it needs to effectively pump blood to the rest of the body. 

Explore the statistics relating to heart attacks below.

Prevalence¹

• Almost 2% of people will experience a heart attack sometime in their life, equating to 430,000 people in Australia. 
• More than twice as many men experience heart attacks compared to women. 
• The rate of people reporting having heart attacks has increased 6% since 2017-18. 

Deaths³

• Heart attacks are responsible for causing almost 1 in 25 of all deaths (around 4%). 
• This equates to one person dying of a heart attack approximately every 80 minutes, or on average 19 people every day. 
• Considerably more men die from heart attacks compared to women (75% higher rate*). 
• Deaths from heart attacks have been decreasing over time, with the number of people losing their lives due to heart attacks reducing by half over the last ten years.*

Hospitalisations³

• Over 150 people are hospitalised due to a heart attack every day, this is on average, one person every nine minutes. 
• Almost twice as many men are admitted to hospital for heart attacks, compared to women. 
• The number of people hospitalised due to a heart attack have slowly decreased over the last ten years.*  
• $680 million is spent on people admitted to hospital for heart attacks, with this amount rising on average by about 4% every year.⁴

* After adjusting for population size and age distribution.