Advancing a Global Health Agenda for Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for one-third of global mortality, with a disproportionate burden in low- and middle-income countries. These settings face intersecting pressures including under-resourced health systems coupled with rapid urbanisation and environmental shifts. Despite broad global commitments, CVD control has lagged behind historical progress in other health domains, such as HIV, tuberculosis and maternal–child health. This review reframes CVD within a broader global health framework, distilling lessons from successful public health campaigns including infectious diseases and maternal–child health, in which significant mortality declines have been observed over the past decades. It argues that CVD control can benefit from the strategic convergence of simplified treatment protocols, integrated service delivery, community and political engagement, and robust accountability frameworks. With deliberate investment and adaptation, and accompanied by recent technical innovations, CVD programmes are well-poised for transformative progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of reducing premature non-communicable disease mortality by one-third by 2030.