A snapshot of cardiovascular diseases in Africa in the new millennium

摘要

The ageing of populations observed in many settings around the world extends to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where life expectancy at birth has increased by about 18 years between 1950 and 2010.1 It has been estimated that ageing of African populations will accelerate further in the coming decades, such that the gap in life expectancy with the world average will drop from 20 years in 2010, to only about 10 years by 2050. Lessons learned from other parts of the world suggest that changes in the age structure of populations with increasing proportions of elderly people, which is also known as 'demographic transition', is usually paralleled by changes in health profiles, which have been characterised as 'epidemiological transitions'.