Most distinctive causes of death mapped by US state
(HealthDay)—The most distinctive causes of death for each U.S. state have been mapped in a report published online May 14 in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Preventing Chronic Disease.
Francis P. Boscoe, Ph.D., from the New York State Cancer Registry, and Eva Pradhan, M.P.H., from the New York State Department of Health—both in Albany, examined the most distinctive cause of death for each state and the District of Columbia for 2001 to 2010. Cause of death was based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, list of 113 selected causes of death.
The researchers found that based on a wide range of number of deaths, the U.S. map depicted a variety of distinctive causes of death. This ranged from 15,000 HIV deaths in Florida to 679 tuberculosis deaths in Texas, and 22 syphilis deaths in Louisiana. In Michigan, there were 37,392 deaths from "atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, so described," which was the largest number of deaths. In contrast, there were just 11 deaths in Montana from "acute and rapidly progressive nephritic and nephrotic syndrome."
"This map has been a robust conversation starter among those who have seen it before publication, generating hypotheses and inviting further exploration of the underlying data set, something that an equivalent tabular representation does not accomplish as well," the authors write.
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