Cardiovascular risk factors in Croatia: struggling to provide the evidence for developing policy recommendations.

Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death in most European transitional countries. Among these countries, standardised mortality from cardiovascular disease is highest in Hungary (508 per 100 000 population) and Croatia (500/100 000) and lowest in Slovenia (295/100 000) and central European countries (238/100 000). In Croatia, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and accounts for more than half the overall mortality. Furthermore, cardiovascular mortality has been constantly rising since the 1970s.