About 4.2 million Australians are living with a cardiovascular condition, and of those, 1.2 million have been diagnosed with heart disease and are 5 to 7 times more likely to suffer future heart events than those without heart disease.

This report highlights that people with cardiovascular disease require aggressive management of their risk factors to prevent secondary cardiovascular events. This includes effective strategies to support medicine and treatment adherence, rehabilitation, and lifestyle changes.

It outlines the critical and timely opportunity to invest in high-risk patients and recommends measures such as a secondary prevention campaign, improvement in cardiac rehabilitation funding and research into wider use of new therapies.