What is a good SCORE2 result?

There is no single good number, because the thresholds move with age. Under 50 the low to moderate band ends at 2.5%, between 50 and 69 it ends at 5%. So 4% is low to moderate for a 60-year-old and high risk for a 45-year-old.

Is SCORE2 the same as the old SCORE?

No. SCORE, from 2003, estimated the 10-year risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. SCORE2, published in 2021, estimates fatal and non-fatal events together, so its numbers are substantially higher for the same person. A result from one is not comparable with a result from the other.

Why does the calculator refuse my age?

SCORE2 was derived and validated in adults aged 40 to 69. Under 40 there is no validated estimate. From 70 the European Society of Cardiology uses a separate model, SCORE2-OP, with its own coefficients and its own thresholds, so applying SCORE2 there would produce a number the guideline does not stand behind.

Can I use SCORE2 if I have diabetes?

No. The published algorithm carries a diabetes term only because the recalibration needed data on a whole population; the model itself was not validated in people with diabetes, and the ESC publishes SCORE2-Diabetes for them. This calculator therefore does not ask about diabetes, and it does not apply if you have it.

Does quitting smoking change the result?

Immediately and substantially, because the model reads smoking as yes or no. That overstates the speed: real risk after quitting falls over years rather than overnight, and the model has no former smoker category to represent the middle. Read the gap between your two results as the direction, not the timetable.

Do I need to fast before the blood test?

Not for a standard lipid panel. Current European guidance accepts non-fasting samples for total cholesterol and HDL, which are the two values this calculator needs. Follow whatever instruction your lab or your doctor gives you.

SCORE2 calculator

SCORE2 estimates your risk of a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years. This one uses the European Society of Cardiology model calibrated for Switzerland: six inputs, and you get the percentage plus the risk category it falls into.

Fill in the six fields and your 10-year risk will appear here.

The calculation runs in your browser and nothing you enter is sent to us or stored. SCORE2 estimates risk across a population of people like you, so it describes a group better than it describes any one person.

The model

What SCORE2 is

SCORE2 is the risk model the European Society of Cardiology published in 2021 to replace the original SCORE. It estimates the probability that an apparently healthy adult has a first heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular event within the next 10 years.

The change from the old SCORE matters. SCORE counted cardiovascular deaths only, which made the numbers look small and hard to act on. SCORE2 counts fatal and non-fatal events together, so a result of 5% means five people in a hundred having an event, not five dying.

It was derived from individual data on 677,684 adults in 45 cohort studies across 13 European countries, covering 30,121 cardiovascular events, then recalibrated to four risk regions so the answer reflects the cardiovascular mortality where you live.

What it reads

The five things the model uses

SCORE2 is deliberately short. Every input is something a GP already has, and each one is combined with age, which is why the same blood pressure costs a 45-year-old more than a 65-year-old.

Age and sex

Age is the strongest single term, and it enters through a combination with every other input rather than standing alone. Women and men are scored with two separate published models, each with its own coefficients.

Smoking

Yes or no, and the largest term you can change. The model has no category for former smokers: it was fitted on current smoking, so someone who quit is scored as a non-smoker even though their real risk sits somewhere in between.

Systolic blood pressure

The upper number in a reading, measured at rest. Diastolic pressure is not in the model. One high reading is not the same as high blood pressure, so use a recent typical measurement.

Total cholesterol

In millimoles per litre, from a lipid panel. Total cholesterol enters together with HDL, which in effect means SCORE2 is reading your non-HDL cholesterol.

HDL cholesterol

The one input with a negative coefficient, so a higher HDL lowers the estimate. It is also the weakest of the five: raising HDL on its own has not been shown to lower risk the way lowering LDL does.

What counts as high risk at your age

The same percentage means different things at different ages. A 10-year risk of 6% at 45 leaves far more years for that risk to keep accumulating than the same 6% at 65, so the European Society of Cardiology sets its thresholds by age group.

What counts as high risk at your age
Age	Low to moderate risk	High risk	Very high risk
under 50	below 2.5%	2.5% to under 7.5%	7.5% and above
50 to 69	below 5%	5% to under 10%	10% and above
70 and over	below 7.5%	7.5% to under 15%	15% and above

The row for 70 and over is the guideline, shown for completeness. This calculator stops at 69, because from 70 a separate model applies: SCORE2-OP.

Who the number applies to

SCORE2 was built for people who do not yet have a cardiovascular diagnosis. For everyone else the risk is already known to be high, and other models exist.

It applies if

You are between 40 and 69 years old
You have never been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease
You have a recent blood pressure reading and a recent lipid panel

It does not apply if

You have had a heart attack, a stroke or a revascularisation: your risk already sits in the highest category
You have diabetes: the ESC publishes SCORE2-Diabetes for that
You have chronic kidney disease: SCORE2-CKD applies instead
You have familial hypercholesterolaemia, or you are pregnant

SCORE2 also has nothing to say about family history, coronary calcium, Lp(a) or inflammation, any of which can move a real risk assessment. That is a reason to read the result with a doctor, not a reason to ignore it.

Why a Swiss result differs from a German one

A single model for the whole of Europe would overstate risk in the healthiest countries and understate it in the rest, so SCORE2 is recalibrated to four risk regions ranked by national cardiovascular mortality. Switzerland is in the low risk region, together with Belgium, Denmark, France, Israel, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The difference is not cosmetic. A 60-year-old man with a blood pressure of 140 and a total cholesterol of 6.0 scores 6.1% here and 7.8% on the moderate region's calibration, where Germany and Austria sit: roughly a quarter higher, and enough to move some people across a treatment threshold. This calculator uses the low risk region because it serves Switzerland, and it produces no number at all for a market whose region has not been set.

Swiss numbers, Swiss labs

Cholesterol is entered in mmol/L, the way Swiss labs report it. There is no mg/dL field on purpose: a unit switcher is the one place a reader could feed 200 into a term expecting 5.2 and get a wrong answer that still looks plausible.

The limits

What SCORE2 cannot tell you

The model is a good way to decide who needs a conversation. It is a poor way to describe what is happening inside one person.

It describes a group, not you

A result of 5% means that out of a hundred people with your six values, about five will have an event in the next decade. It does not say whether you are one of the five, and nothing in the model narrows that down.

Ten years is a short window

A 45-year-old almost always scores low over 10 years, because the risk arrives later. That is why the thresholds are stricter under 50, and why lifetime risk is the more useful frame at that age than the percentage on this page.

Five inputs is not a heart

Lp(a), coronary calcium, inflammatory markers, kidney function, sleep apnoea and family history all change real risk, and none of them is in the model. Two people with identical SCORE2 results can have very different arteries.

The inputs move

Blood pressure varies through the day and cholesterol varies from month to month. A result built from one measurement of each is a snapshot, which is why a trend across repeat panels tells you more than a single figure.

Track it, do not estimate it

SCORE2 estimates. Repeat measurements show.

An Ahead Health membership is a year of structured prevention: repeat blood panels covering lipids, inflammation, glucose and organ function, a personal report you can actually read, and a prevention team that goes through it with you. It answers the question SCORE2 raises but cannot settle, which is where your own numbers are heading.

Become a member See what is included

A membership is prevention, not treatment. It does not replace care from your own doctor.

Up to four blood check-ups a year, 80 plus biomarkers each
Your lipid panel tracked over time, not measured once
Lp(a) and inflammatory markers, which SCORE2 does not read
A personal report and an action plan reviewed by Swiss physicians
A prevention team you can ask about your result

Frequently asked questions

Other calculators

Free tools that ask a different question about the same body.

Measure the inputs, then track them

A blood check-up gives you the lipid panel SCORE2 needs, plus the markers it does not read: Lp(a), inflammation, glucose and organ function, reviewed by Swiss physicians.

Source

SCORE2 working group and ESC Cardiovascular Risk Collaboration, SCORE2 risk prediction algorithms: new models to estimate 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease in Europe, European Heart Journal 2021, volume 42, pages 2439 to 2454. The risk categories follow the 2021 ESC guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice. Calibrated here for the low risk region, the one Switzerland belongs to.

This calculator provides general health information and is not a medical diagnosis. It does not replace an assessment by a doctor. If your result worries you, or if you have symptoms, speak to a physician.