Routine health checks for heart disease risk did not recover fully after the pandemic

Routine screening to detect risk factors for heart disease dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic in England, and some key measurements, such as blood pressure readings, may still lag behind pre-pandemic levels. These findings are reported in a new study by Frederick Ho and Naveed Sattar of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, and colleagues published November 26^th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients went without routine face-to-face health checks, which are important for detecting common cardiometabolic conditions, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Previously, it was unknown whether these health checks had recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

Researchers looked at how often clinicians took measurements of 12 risk factors for cardiometabolic disease between November 2018 and March 2024, using records from more than 49 million adults in England. They saw a sharp drop in the numbers of measurements being performed from March 2020 to February 2022, but most of the risk factor measurements returned to normal by 2022 to 2023. Blood pressure measurements were an exception, and as of March 2024 were still not back to normal, especially in patients belonging to lower socioeconomic levels.

The findings from the new research confirm previous studies showing that patients missed important routine health checks during the pandemic lockdowns. This lack of screening for cardiometabolic conditions likely explains previous observations that fewer patients received preventive prescriptions, like drugs to lower blood pressure, during the pandemic. The long-term disruption of blood pressure screening identified by the study could lead to missed opportunities for treatment, increasing the risk of cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, or even death. This could also exacerbate existing health disparities for lower-income patients.

The authors add, "These data alert us to potential missed opportunities to measure key risk factors for chronic diseases, which are on the rise in the UK in an alarming way. Health care workers need better ways to more efficiently capture and then act upon changes in risks to prevent important diseases. The use of new technologies to capture data and better empower patients to make important lifestyle changes are needed."