(NEW YORK) -- Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, according to a new report.
The American Heart Association (AHA) report, published Monday in the journal Circulation, found that 941,652 Americans died from cardiovascular disease in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. That's an increase of more than 10,000 from the just over 931,500 reported to have died from cardiovascular disease in 2021.
It also means that a person in the U.S. dies of cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds, or nearly 2,500 people every day, according to the AHA report.
"The stats are pretty sobering from this report," Dr. Tara Narula, ABC News chief medical correspondent and a board-certified cardiologist, said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday. "In fact, cardiovascular disease kills more Americans than all forms of cancer and accidents combined."
Cancer and accidental deaths continue to remain the second and third leading causes of death, respectively, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The AHA report also found racial and ethnicity disparities, with Black Americans having the highest prevalence of cardiovascular disease. Between 2017 and 2020, 59% of non-Hispanic Black females and 58.9% of non-Hispanic Black males had some form of the disease, according to the report.
In addition, the report showed several heart disease risk factors continue to rise, with nearly 47% of American adults having high blood pressure and more than half, 57%, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.
Additionally, 72% of U.S. adults have an unhealthy weight, with nearly 42% of adults having obesity, which also is a risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease, according to the AHA report.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Dhruv Kazi, associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center In Boston, said risk factors for cardiovascular disease are expected to rise over the next several years.
"Although we have made a lot of progress against cardiovascular disease in the past few decades, there is a lot more work that remains to be done," Kazi wrote. "If recent trends continue, hypertension and obesity will each affect more than 180 million U.S. adults by 2050, whereas the prevalence of diabetes will climb to more than 80 million."
Overall, cardiovascular-related deaths have begun plateauing after ticking upward during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the AHA. The report found death rates dropped during the survey period for all 10 leading causes of death except kidney disease, which increased by 1.5%.
The good news is that 80% of cardiovascular disease is preventable, according to Narula. Ways to lower the risk include eating a heart-healthy diet, getting regular exercise, quitting smoking, managing stress, and getting adequate sleep every night.