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Cardiac arrest
Persistent OHCA inequality across England
Health inequalities in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest incidence and bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation rates in England 2018–23
Resuscitation · Added 25 August 2026
Retrospective analysis of 165,701 OHCA patients in England 2018–23 found 23.6% of postcode districts remain high-risk (higher OHCA incidence, lower bystander CPR rates), with urban deprived areas showing 71.2% BCPR versus 79.1% in low-risk areas, though ROSC and survival were slightly higher in high-risk areas.
- Study type
- Registry
- Design
- Retrospective geospatial registry analysis
- Participants
- 165,701 OHCA patients across 2,102 postcode districts
- Main finding
- 499 high-risk postcode districts (23.6%) with higher OHCA incidence and lower bystander CPR (71.2% vs 79.1% in low-risk areas); ROSC (27.4% vs 26.5%) and survival (8.2% vs 7.9%) slightly higher in high-risk areas; patterns unchanged since 2013-2015.
- Caveat
- English data and registry-based, so findings may not generalise to the Australian context
- Bottom line
- Context only
Why it matters in Australia (High relevance). OHCA epidemiology and CPR inequality — findings generalizable to Australian contexts with socioeconomic disparities
Learning goal
Understand how socioeconomic disadvantage shapes out-of-hospital cardiac arrest incidence and bystander CPR rates in Australian communities.
More
- Topic: Cardiac arrest
- Daily scan: 25 August 2026
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