Not to ruin your holiday spirit, but the annual Mortality Report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics has been released, with the latest statistics representing 2008. There is actually some good news in the report to temper the bad. And a few surprises popped up this year, as well.
The good news is that the age-adjusted death rate for the U.S. population fell for the ninth straight year to an all-time low of 758.7 deaths per 100,000 population in 2008—0.2 percent lower than the 2007 rate of 760.2. The infant mortality rate also declined, from 6.77 to 6.59 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, which is considered to be an all-time low. However, that still means that we lost 2,473,018 American men, women and children in 2008.
Strangely, life expectancy was down for both males and females, although not dramatically. On average, Americans are living an average of 77.8 years (down from 77.9), with longevity among men at 75.3 and females at 80.3 years.
Leading cause of death, which is no surprise, is heart disease. Here are the top 5:
1. Heart Disease
2. Cancer: Maintains it second place spot, joining with heart disease to account for 48% of all deaths in 2008.
3. Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases: Jumped over Stroke to nab the #3 spot this year. Deaths from chronic lower respiratory diseases increased a whopping 7.8%.
4. Stroke: Slipping from the third spot for the first time in fifty years, deaths from strokes declined 3.8%
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries)
In addition to stroke, mortality rates declined for five other leading causes of death: accidents (3.5 percent), homicide (3.3 percent), diabetes (3.1 percent), heart disease (2.2 percent), and cancer (1.6 percent). On the flip side, mortality rates increased significantly in 2008 for #3 Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases, as well as Alzheimer’s disease (7.5 percent), influenza and pneumonia (4.9 percent), hypertension (4.1 percent), suicide (2.7 percent), and kidney disease (2.1 percent).
Birth defects were the leading cause of infant death in 2008, followed by disorders related to preterm birth and low birth weight. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) was the third leading cause of infant death in the United States, with maternal complication in pregnancy coming in at #4, and accidents at #5. There is some disparity among races in this category. The infant mortality rate for black infants was 12.68 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with 13.24 per 1,000 live births in 2007, however this does a decrease of 4.2%.
The data in the 2008 Mortality Report are based on 99 percent of death certificates reported to NCHS through the National Vital Statistics System from all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. The full report is available here.
No comments:
Post a Comment