Antonio Felipe Simão et al. Dalton Bertolim Précoma Jadelson Pinheiro de Andrade Harry Correa Filho … José Francisco Kerr Saraiva Gláucia Maria Moraes de Oliveira
Introduction
Brazil currently faces a major health challenge: the pandemic scenario of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. According to Brazilian Health Ministry data, 326,000 deaths due to cardiovascular diseases (CVD) occurred in 2010, corresponding to approximately 1,000 deaths/day, 200,000 deaths due exclusively to ischemic heart and cerebrovascular diseases, reflecting a gloomy scenario far from the minimally acceptable control.
This current scenario can be attributed to many reasons, such as the insufficiency and inadequacy of public health policies for CVD prevention, leading to the well-known lack of infrastructure in primary health care, hindering the fight against preventable affections, mainly in the neediest areas.
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