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Each year, the American Heart Association (AHA), in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and other government agencies, brings together the most up-to-date statistics on heart disease, stroke, other vascular diseases, and their risk factors and presents them in its Heart Disease and Stroke Statistical Update. The Statistical Update is a critical resource for researchers, clinicians, healthcare policy makers, media professionals, the lay public, and many others who seek the best available national data on heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular disease–related morbidity and mortality and the risks, quality of care, use of medical procedures and operations, and costs associated with the management of these diseases in a single document. Indeed, since 1999, the Statistical Update has been cited> 10 500 times in the literature, based on citations of all …