Ethnic health inequalities in cardiac rehabilitation: driving high-quality data

Abstract

People of South Asian ethnicities are underserved by cardiac rehabilitation services, despite being more susceptible to developing cardiac risk factors and experiencing higher rates of cardiac-related mortality and hospitalisations. To reduce ethnic health inequalities and increase uptake and completion of cardiac rehabilitation, services must understand the demographic characteristics related to this population and make culturally relevant programme adaptations. Cardiovascular nurses can play a key role in improving the quality of data collection, identifying and reporting health inequalities and redesigning services to consider the needs of those who are most at risk.