Black adults in the United States are first hospitalized for heart failure at an average age of 60.1, nearly 14 years earlier than white adults, according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine. The research, which analyzed data from more than 42,000 patients across hundreds of hospitals nationwide, also found that Hispanic and Asian American patients are hospitalized at younger ages compared to white patients.
On average, white patients were first hospitalized for heart failure at age 73.6. Hispanic patients were first hospitalized at age 65.4, and Asian American patients at age 70.6.
The study’s authors used statistical modeling to identify factors contributing to these differences. They determined that social and economic elements—including health insurance status, local unemployment rates, and community education levels—were linked to earlier hospitalizations among Black, Hispanic, and Asian American populations.
Heart failure is a condition in which the heart cannot pump blood effectively. It currently affects over six million U.S. adults and is expected to increase significantly in coming years.
“These are striking differences, especially for Black patients,” said study first author Dr. Xiaoning Huang, research assistant professor of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
The findings were published on September 1 in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Huang and his colleagues reviewed hospital records from over 42,000 patients treated at 713 hospitals between 2016 and 2019 through the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines – Heart Failure Registry. The researchers compared ages at first hospitalization across racial and ethnic groups and used statistical methods to assess how much of the observed differences could be explained by social or medical factors.
“Our study shows that social risk factors, including insurance status and area-level educational and economic opportunities, played a major role. These factors often limit people’s access to quality health care and shape people’s health long before they develop heart problems,” said Huang.
Huang emphasized that addressing these disparities requires more than medical interventions alone.
“Raising awareness is the first step toward advocating for policies that ensure everyone has educational and economic opportunities, healthy food, affordable and high-quality care, and freedom from discrimination, so that neither your ZIP code nor your racial background determines how soon you face serious heart problems,” he said.
At the clinical level, Huang noted that health systems need to recognize that heart failure can occur much earlier in certain communities.
“This means starting prevention earlier and screening risk factors sooner,” he said. “We also need social workers to connect patients to resources that address social needs in addition to medical ones.”
The research was supported by a grant from the American Heart Association (grant number 24GWTGDRA1308856).