Topic: Cardiovascular Disease Burden, Risk Factors, and Healthy Longevity

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death and disability worldwide, posing a persistent threat to population health and health equity across rapidly aging societies. This Special Issue focuses on the global burden, mortality patterns, risk factors, and evolving epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases, with a central emphasis on healthy longevity across the life course and in older populations. It aims to bridge population-level evidence, methodological innovation, and translational applications, accelerating the transformation of epidemiological findings into actionable strategies for prevention, clinical decision-making, and public health policy.

We welcome original research articles, reviews, and commentaries addressing spatiotemporal trends in incidence, prevalence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of cardiovascular diseases and their subtypes at global, regional, national, and subnational levels. Studies using advanced modeling frameworks, large-scale health data integration, and novel analytical methods are strongly encouraged, particularly those that generate model-based projections of future cardiovascular disease burden and provide integrated insights into burden forecasting, resource allocation, and health system planning, with further implications for life expectancy and healthy longevity in aging populations.

Cardiovascular disease in aging populations is increasingly characterized by multimorbidity, frailty, disability, and functional decline, shaping heterogeneous trajectories of healthy longevity in late life. Research exploring life-course accumulation of risk, disease clustering patterns, and heterogeneity in aging-related cardiovascular outcomes is highly encouraged, particularly in elderly populations and vulnerable groups. We also encourage studies advancing understanding of risk factors and etiological determinants, including genetic, behavioral, psychosocial, and social dimensions, across life-course exposures in older populations.

Environmental determinants, including air pollution, climate change, temperature extremes, urbanization, green space, and built environment exposures, are recognized as key drivers of cardiovascular aging and health disparities affecting healthy longevity. Studies integrating spatial epidemiology, exposome frameworks, and environmental health equity perspectives are especially welcomed.

This Special Issue also highlights emerging advances in digital health and artificial intelligence for cardiovascular epidemiology and care. Topics include wearable devices, mobile health (mHealth), remote monitoring systems, digital therapeutics, and machine learning–based predictive modeling for risk stratification, early detection, and long-term disease management, alongside considerations of fairness, ethics, implementation barriers, and scalability in real-world settings.   

We particularly encourage studies addressing disparities in cardiovascular disease and healthy longevity across sex, age, race/ethnicity, geography, and socioeconomic status.

Hot Topics

Disease Burden, Surveillance, and Life/Health Expectancy

● Global, regional, and national cardiovascular disease burden (incidence, prevalence, mortality, DALYs) and spatiotemporal trends;

● Impact of cardiovascular disease on life expectancy and healthy life expectancy;

● Model-based projections of future cardiovascular burden, including aging and elderly populations.

Risk Factors and Causal Inference in Elderly Cardiovascular Populations

● Traditional, genetic, behavioral, psychosocial, and social determinants of cardiovascular disease in older adults;

● Etiological mechanisms and risk stratification in elderly populations;

● Life-course epidemiology focused on cardiovascular risk accumulation in aging populations.

Aging, Multimorbidity, and Frailty in Cardiovascular Disease

● Cardiovascular disease and multimorbidity patterns in aging populations;

● Frailty, disability, and functional decline trajectories;

● Comorbidity networks (cardiovascular, metabolic, renal, mental health diseases);

● Life-course perspectives on functional aging and health outcomes.

Environmental Determinants of Cardiovascular Health and Aging

● Air pollution, climate change, and extreme temperature effects on cardiovascular outcomes;

● Urbanization, green space, and built environment influences;

● Environmental exposures and accelerated cardiovascular aging;

● Environmental health inequities in aging populations.

Digital Health, Artificial Intelligence, and Risk Prediction in Aging Populations

● AI/ML-based models for cardiovascular risk prediction, stratification, and prognosis;

● Wearable devices, mHealth, and remote monitoring systems;

● Digital therapeutics for long-term cardiovascular management in older adults;

● Fairness, ethics, and equity in digital cardiovascular health technologies.

Cardiovascular disease burden, healthy longevity, life expectancy, cardiometabolic risk factors, spatiotemporal trends, health inequalities, multimorbidity, frailty, environmental determinants, digital health