Comments | differenceblog: Causes of Death

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Causes of Death

Jul 11, 2007 08:25

Robert Anderson (2001) (in a CDC Vital Statistics report) gives the leading causes of death in the United States by age, sex, and race for 1999. In 1999, the top three causes for men and women are the same, accounting for similar percentages of deaths: heart disease, cancer, and stroke. By 2001, stroke had dropped to the #4 slot for men in the U ( Read more... )

cultural differences, betty smith, cancer, accidents, robert anderson, mortality, sex differences, stroke, alan lopez, heart disease, injuries, cause of death, christopher murray, gender differences

Comments 8

astrogeek01 July 11 2007, 14:49:37 UTC

At least anecdotally, there is a perception among doctors that accidental injuries at least drop off for men around 35 or so. At least, I was chatting with my doctor last time I was in, and it was something he mentioned. I have no idea why were talking about that, we get on these random tangents sometimes... (I like my doctor :)

differenceblog July 11 2007, 15:01:35 UTC

eek. That comment gave me an idea for a different search term, and I found this report on minority health: Kaiser Family Foundation (2006,pdf)

"While the death rate drops for men ages 25 to 29 for most
groups, it continues to rise among African Americans."

:(

astrogeek01 July 11 2007, 15:31:22 UTC

Is that accidental death rate?

either way, :(

replacing comment for broken link: differenceblog July 11 2007, 15:35:57 UTC

That quote is referring to all causes of death. The document goes on to say: "The leading causes of death for all young men ages 15-29, regardless of race or ethnicity, are unintentional injury (e.g. car accident, firearm, or drowning), suicide, and homicide." (and cites the source Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) [online]. which is probably where I should have been looking in the first place.

Thread 5

beckyzoole July 11 2007, 16:29:43 UTC

I didn't find the data I was really hoping for, which was a breakdown of causes of death by decade of life

I'm pretty sure there are tables like that available through the CDC's website. I don't have the time to look for them myself now, sorry, but I seem to remember seeing them with the general mortality tables.

differenceblog July 11 2007, 16:39:20 UTC

I think it's available through the WISQRS database (see link in other comments) which I found as part of that discussion.

differenceblog July 11 2007, 17:08:15 UTC

The output from WISQRS is actually quite neat. Here's the male and female "ranked cause of death" charts from 2004.

Three key causes are color coded. "Unintentional injury" (blue) is the leading cause of death for males and females from ages 1 to 34. Women's suicide (green) rates seem to drop off after 19, but men's pick up in the 25-34 age range. Homicide is in red, and is all over the place.

(click for bigger)
Female:

( ... )