EPA contributes to European Commission consultation on Cardiovascular Health

The EPA submitted a response to the European Commission Consultation on Cardiovascular Health Checks, calling for people with severe mental illness to be explicitly recognised as a high risk population in screening programmes for cardiovascular health.

People with severe mental illness face significant challenges including excess mortality, modifiable cardiovascular risk factors, barriers to accessing care, and persistent stigma that leave them systematically underserved by existing prevention efforts.

The EPA response provides the Commission with actionable recommendations that will strengthen the Safe Hearts Plan, enable it to address this persistent health inequality, and ensure its ambition of reducing premature cardiovascular mortality leaves no one behind.

The statement was developed by EPA Treasurer, Professor Martina Rojnić Kuzman and EPA President Prof. Andrea Fiorillo. This follows the guidance provided by the EPA Task Force on Whole Person Health and important interdisciplinary collaboration with the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The value of psycho-cardiology teams in treating cardiovascular and mental health was addressed at the 12th EPA Forum and at the 33rd European Congress of Psychiatry in Prague.

EPA Response to the European Commission Consultation on Cardiovascular Health (May 2026).

ESC Clinical Consensus Statement on mental health and cardiovascular disease (August 2025).

EPA Paper from lifestyle psychiatry to whole person health (September 2025).