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May 8, 2005

What do people die of (WISQARS)?

I recently had some cause to research leading causes of death and found the excellent CDC WISQARS system. This includes nifty tools for exploring

Here are some interesting data points:

Top 5 causes of death overall (US, 2002)
Heart Disease (696,947)
Malignant Neoplasms (557,271)
Cerebrovascular (162,672)
Chronic Low Respiratory Disease (124,816)
Unintentional Injury (106,742)

Top 5 causes of death ages 25-34 (US, 2002)
Unintentional Injury (15,412)
Suicide (5,219)
Homicide (4,489)
Malignant Neoplasms (3,872)
Heart Disease (3,165)

Top 6 causes of death by years of potential life before age 65 (US, 2002)
Unintentional Injury (2,159,266)
Malignant Neoplasms (1,903,274)
Heart Disease (1,434,511)
Perinatal Period (924,364)
Suicide (666,398)
Homicide (579,268)

Over 50% (1,166,780) of the years lost due to Unintentional Injury are due to motor vehicle injuries. If we counted it as a separate category it alone would be the third leading cause of death. Drive carefully, folks.

Posted by ekr at May 8, 2005 7:17 PM | Filed under:

Comments

funny--i don't see rabies or "infections from dead animals" anywhere on here... :-)

Posted by: Scott Dudley at May 9, 2005 3:14 PM

People have to die somehow...

Posted by: Andrew at May 10, 2005 7:28 AM