According to the American Heart Association, nearly 5 million people experience heart failure and about 550,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the United States. Heart failure becomes more prevalent with age. The condition affects 1 percent of people aged 50 years and older and about 5 percent of those aged 75 years and older. In fact, heart failure is the commonest reason for admission to a hospital for people 65 and over. African-Americans experience heart failure twice as often as Caucasians and are 1.5 times more likely to die of CHF than whites are.
Nevertheless, African-American patients appear to have similar or lower in-hospital mortality rates than white patients. Between the ages of 40 to 75, men experience heart failure more than women. However, after the age of 75, women catch up and the difference between the sexes disappears. Health experts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) expect these numbers to grow even more for two main reasons.
The first is that cardiac patients are now able to survive and live longer with their disease because of more effective treatments. This increases their chances of developing CHF. The second reason is that the elderly population continues to grow as a percentage of the overall population, making it likely that the number of people with heart failure will increase as well.