Cardiovascular diseases in populations: secular trends and contemporary challenges—Geoffrey Rose lecture, European Society of Cardiology meeting 2014

Geoffrey Rose pioneered the concept that, to reduce the burden of disease, improving the population distribution of a risk factor was preferable to interventions that target high-risk individuals. Reflecting on this concept prompted us to ask if temporal trends in the burden of cardiovascular disease support this hypothesis. This perspective article summarizes the Geoffrey Rose lecture given at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in 2014 and examines how cardiovascular diseases have evolved over the past three decades focusing on temporal trends in myocardial infarction and heart failure.