Cancer and heart disease cause over half of all deaths in the United States, and Iowa is no different. In many cases, social and lifestyle factors contribute to these deaths.
Public health prevention efforts can help to reduce costly treatment and decreased quality of life, in addition to death caused by these issues.
Measure Description:
- Each cause of death age adjusted rate (AAR) is the total number of deaths for each cause per 10,000 population. Age adjustment to the 2000 Standard US Census is done to allow direct comparison of rates in counties and state with different population age distributions.
- Accidents (unintentional injuries) includes both transport and non-transport accidents, as well as poisonings and natural disasters.
- Cerebrovascular diseases include stroke and atherosclerosis (plaque buildup in the arteries). In this measure, it does not include diseases of the heart such as heart attacks.
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases include asthma, emphysema, and bronchitis.
- Diseases of the heart include ventricular failure (failure in one side of the heart), blockage of heart structures, and myocardial infarction (heart attack). In this measure, it does not include cerebrovascular diseases occurring in any other part of the body.
- Malignant neoplasms (cancer) includes cancers of all parts of the body.