Downward Trends in US Mortality Statistics Save

Using death certificate data from US National Vital Statistics System of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, JAMA reports a downward trend in death rates in the USA from 1969 - 2013).

During this period, the age-standardized death rate per 100 000 decreased from 1278.8 to 729.8 for all causes (42.9% reduction), from 156.8 to 36.0 for stroke (77.0% reduction), from 520.4 to 169.1 for heart disease (67.5% reduction), from 65.1 to 39.2 for unintentional injuries (39.8% reduction), from 198.6 to 163.1 for cancer (17.9% reduction), and from 25.3 to 21.1 for diabetes (16.5% reduction).

In contrast, the rate for COPD increased from 21.0 to 42.2 (100.6% increase; 95% CI, 98.2%-103.1%).

These downward trends for heart disease and stroke is attributed to improvements in control of hypertension and hyperlipidemia, smoking cessation, and medical treatment overall.