One interesting thing I learned from this is how highly correlated mortality from heart disease and cancer are. They're quite different types of disease, but perhaps what they have in common is that they're diseases of civilization in the sense of being caused by de facto "toxins" (I don't mean this literally) of industrialized life like processed foods, lack of exercise, cigarettes, etc.
Is there local data about possible causes of mortality? If so that might be a good thing to add.
Also note that strokes are highly correlated with those two most likely due to it being a consequence of cardiovascular (read: heart) disease. The concentration of heart disease/stroke mortality in that region seems to be highly correlated with obesity distribution, which isn't a surprise. Actually, the state with the highest rate of obesity [1], Mississipi, is also the one with the highest mortality due to heart disease, and 3rd highest for strokes.
As for cancer mortality, the distribution closely matches that of smoking prevalence by state, more so than the distribution for heart disease, again not a surprise [2].
What I find the most interesting, though, are the lone states that don't seem to be a part of any cluster and have a high prevalence of, like high respiratory mortality (and influenza/pneumonia) in Wyoming, or Alzheimer's in Washington and North Dakota, or high drug mortality in Arizona (and not in any of the other border states).
New research suggests that low vitamin D levels may be factors in both CVD and cancer, which could explain part of the correlation.
The high rates in the states around Mississippi are because of the high fraction of African Americans, who experience higher (double) rates of CVD compared to whites, a fact not inconsistent with the vitamin D hypothesis.
My totally unscientific pet theory is that if you somehow managed to survive long enough, eventually you will succumb to cancer or heart disease. So places with high cancer/heart disease rates might simply be places with the best healthcare system!
On first glance, I was shocked by how similar it looked to the electoral map from Presidential elections. 39/50 states in this chart are the correct color for the 2012 electoral map. For fun, I then took the correlation of the mortality rate and percentage of votes for Romney for each state and got at 49% correlation.
It goes without saying that correlation != causation and I do not mean this as a political statement, rather a quantification of this curious resemblance.
Remote, low population areas are high for accidents and suicides.
The Alzheimer's chart was unusual, all things being equal, I'd have expected the statistic to be flatter.
Suicide, Alcohol and Parkinson's have a strange sort of correlation.
how come whenever I see these kinds of things, it's always for the U.S.? Is the data simply not available in other countries/areas? I've almost never seen similar visualization experiments for say...France. Is the U.S. just that* much better in collecting and distributing data about itself?
This is a fascinating tool you've put together. One can look at all sorts of interesting contrasts and/or patterns from it.
One that I found interesting is that Washington and Florida have among the lowest rates for the flu, on complete opposite corners of the map and with what most would say are very different climates.
I was also surprised that the flu kills more per 100,000 than alcohol, firearms, or vehicles. It doesn't seem to get the press that those others do.
How does mortality data account for age? Given heart disease, cancer, and respiratory diseases were the top three causes of death in 2010, if in 2060 the average life span were 10 years longer, isn't it likely that these three things would still be the leading cause of death? The geographic distribution is interesting, but it seems to me that to breaking it down by age group would be more informative.
On page 110 of the CDC's PDF the formula for computing age-adjustment is discussed. You'll also find the original data there where you can look column-by-column and see the impact that adjustment has for various states and cases.
Once I get that data I'll be all over. I definitely think this data (and something more granular) is particularly fascinating when considered over time.
Anybody know anything about VT health stats? I'm struck by the fact that it:
* Has the lowest influenza/pneumonia rate (7.9)
* Has the lowest nephritis rate (6.7)
* Is in the "really low" rate color for HIV and homicides*
* But has the highest Parkinson's rate (9.6)
What's a contributing factor for Parkinson's?
* Edit: That appears to be the "no data" color actually. I just assumed it was very low because VT has few homicides (1.4 / 100k residents average rate for the past 3 years, or about 10 homicides annually)
I know several folks who live in Kentucky. Doesn't look like the state does too well. Florida, on the other hand, seems to hold up well across the board. Obesity kills in the deep south and especially the central Gulf states big time, and there's a string of alcoholism than runs along the Rocky Mountains.
I don't find the Connecticut/Hawaii good numbers too strange, as both have very high incomes and cost of living.
I always realy like these kind of data. Not in a morbid sense but just to see the real data instead of marketing driven FUD. Another thought that I always have seeing data like this is that it gives a clear view where the government should spend their/our money.
How did you incorporate data from Washington DC into this? I can almost guarantee that the reason Maryland has such a high rate on the HIV/AIDS chart is because of the District, and its outlying areas (Prince George's County, Anacostia, etc.)
I didn't include DC data. It does exist if you reference the data PDF put out by the CDC.
I originally had included DC but it's a major outlier since it's almost entirely urban. It's also not a state and doesn't visualize well because of its size, so it's not in the csv I used.
Yeah, this is also consistent with northern Europe and its higher suicide rates in cold, long, and dark winters. There's definitely a correlation between sun exposure and suicide, while it's not the only factor.
For the "lonely" hypothesis, this map is not precise enough to confirm it. You would probably need a map with dots representing the exact location of all suicides on the map, and overlay it with a density map to see if there is a proper correlation or not.
What would be behind the suicide strip just in from the West coast? Struggling farmers? (I'm not from the US, so not overly familiar with all the states and what they're known for.)
Some recent research suggests the primary factor is "residential instability":
"Put another way, the very traits associated with the West (and romanticized in American culture)—individualism and independence, stoicism and solitude—may also have deeply negative implications for its people."
In Alaska, there are a number of factors that contribute to a high suicide rate. The time of contact between Alaska Natives and others was much more recent in Alaska than elsewhere in the US. That contact brought with it a number of issues:
- disease: Flu and smallpox epidemics wiped out more than half the population in many villages. This was a traumatic event, that left many young people disconnected from their families and cultural groups.
- cultural suppression: Initial contact with Native groups often involved missionaries. While a few missionaries added to an existing culture without taking anything away, most missionary groups came in and told the Native population that their ways were of the devil, and they needed to drop what they were doing and take on Christian traditions. These efforts contributed to severe disconnects between generations.
- introduction of alcohol and other drugs: Combined with all of the other issues that led to young people feeling isolated, alone, and depressed, alcohol and other drugs have had devastating effects on villages, and on urban areas as well.
These are complex issues, and not issues that everyone feels comfortable talking about. They are issues I had no idea existed before I moved to Alaska. That's a really brief overview, but I'm happy to expand on any of those if anyone has any questions.
Availability of means to take one's life surely matters too in those states with higher suicide rates. The intermountain west is a place where everyone has access to firearms. In fact, I remember from a few months ago that there was a National Public Radio report about just that issue in connection with youth suicide in Wyoming.
Most of the intermountain west is very arid, so rather than "farming" as that is usually understood, the occupation tends to be ranching (keeping cattle).
About the leading causes of death, they tend to correlate strongly with poverty, and it's not surprising to find high rates in poorer rather than richer states.
Looks like suicides and accidents are at least a little bit correlated as well. I wonder if that is due to incorrect attributions? It could go either way, too.
So it's actually even worse than that - you need to know not only what will stand a good chance of killing you, but what is sensitive to intervention too. You need a causal link that you can break, not just correlation and that's so hard to research that there's much less known about it.
For example, studies tell us that sitting more than three hours per day correlates with a reduced life expectancy: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/09/study-excessi... but that doesn't tell you that if you take someone who is sitting that much and make them stop it'll make any difference at all.
California, Arizona, Hawaii, Florida are among the best states for longevity. The mortality rates in Hawaii for example are the lowest, and California is #2. The numbers for Texas and New Mexico, while elevated, are still dramatically lower than the high mortality belt numbers.
Also, one of the biggest offenders is West Virginia, and having spent a lot of time there, it's not a particularly warm state about half the year (certainly not compared to Mississippi).
Just guessing; maybe age distribution, income distribution, and climate?
Here's a table showing age distribution by state. This doesn't explain everything, but WV does have the highest percentage (16%) of 65-and-overs. That might explain their poor showing, but LA and MS are unremarkable there: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0016.p...
pg|12 years ago
Is there local data about possible causes of mortality? If so that might be a good thing to add.
kyro|12 years ago
As for cancer mortality, the distribution closely matches that of smoking prevalence by state, more so than the distribution for heart disease, again not a surprise [2].
What I find the most interesting, though, are the lone states that don't seem to be a part of any cluster and have a high prevalence of, like high respiratory mortality (and influenza/pneumonia) in Wyoming, or Alzheimer's in Washington and North Dakota, or high drug mortality in Arizona (and not in any of the other border states).
[1] http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
[2] http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/AdultSmoking/
marze|12 years ago
The high rates in the states around Mississippi are because of the high fraction of African Americans, who experience higher (double) rates of CVD compared to whites, a fact not inconsistent with the vitamin D hypothesis.
prawn|12 years ago
wikiburner|12 years ago
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2152422...
or Google's project Calico in general?:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/03/tech/innovation/google-calico-...
refurb|12 years ago
yen223|12 years ago
matthewisabel|12 years ago
Hopefully I'll find more data sets that I can plug in.
bra-ket|12 years ago
tbenst|12 years ago
It goes without saying that correlation != causation and I do not mean this as a political statement, rather a quantification of this curious resemblance.
bane|12 years ago
bane|12 years ago
The Alzheimer's chart was unusual, all things being equal, I'd have expected the statistic to be flatter.
Suicide, Alcohol and Parkinson's have a strange sort of correlation.
how come whenever I see these kinds of things, it's always for the U.S.? Is the data simply not available in other countries/areas? I've almost never seen similar visualization experiments for say...France. Is the U.S. just that* much better in collecting and distributing data about itself?
pawn|12 years ago
One that I found interesting is that Washington and Florida have among the lowest rates for the flu, on complete opposite corners of the map and with what most would say are very different climates.
I was also surprised that the flu kills more per 100,000 than alcohol, firearms, or vehicles. It doesn't seem to get the press that those others do.
matthewisabel|12 years ago
Update: Fixed.
nhebb|12 years ago
matthewisabel|12 years ago
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf
Nitramp|12 years ago
tokenadult|12 years ago
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-w...
We've made significant progress against most causes of death, at all ages, since I was born.
matthewisabel|12 years ago
brianherbert|12 years ago
yen223|12 years ago
Ellipsis753|12 years ago
sakai|12 years ago
* Has the lowest influenza/pneumonia rate (7.9)
* Has the lowest nephritis rate (6.7)
* Is in the "really low" rate color for HIV and homicides*
* But has the highest Parkinson's rate (9.6)
What's a contributing factor for Parkinson's?
* Edit: That appears to be the "no data" color actually. I just assumed it was very low because VT has few homicides (1.4 / 100k residents average rate for the past 3 years, or about 10 homicides annually)
ronnier|12 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont#Race_and_gender
DanielBMarkham|12 years ago
I know several folks who live in Kentucky. Doesn't look like the state does too well. Florida, on the other hand, seems to hold up well across the board. Obesity kills in the deep south and especially the central Gulf states big time, and there's a string of alcoholism than runs along the Rocky Mountains.
I don't find the Connecticut/Hawaii good numbers too strange, as both have very high incomes and cost of living.
DharmaPolice|12 years ago
unknown|12 years ago
[deleted]
hotpockets|12 years ago
fennecfoxen|12 years ago
LionRoar|12 years ago
dead_phish|12 years ago
matthewisabel|12 years ago
I originally had included DC but it's a major outlier since it's almost entirely urban. It's also not a state and doesn't visualize well because of its size, so it's not in the csv I used.
dubfan|12 years ago
elwell|12 years ago
ekianjo|12 years ago
Yeah, this is also consistent with northern Europe and its higher suicide rates in cold, long, and dark winters. There's definitely a correlation between sun exposure and suicide, while it's not the only factor.
ekianjo|12 years ago
gilgoomesh|12 years ago
prawn|12 years ago
t0dd|12 years ago
"Put another way, the very traits associated with the West (and romanticized in American culture)—individualism and independence, stoicism and solitude—may also have deeply negative implications for its people."
http://www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwjf/newsroom/newsroom-content/...
japhyr|12 years ago
- disease: Flu and smallpox epidemics wiped out more than half the population in many villages. This was a traumatic event, that left many young people disconnected from their families and cultural groups.
- cultural suppression: Initial contact with Native groups often involved missionaries. While a few missionaries added to an existing culture without taking anything away, most missionary groups came in and told the Native population that their ways were of the devil, and they needed to drop what they were doing and take on Christian traditions. These efforts contributed to severe disconnects between generations.
- introduction of alcohol and other drugs: Combined with all of the other issues that led to young people feeling isolated, alone, and depressed, alcohol and other drugs have had devastating effects on villages, and on urban areas as well.
These are complex issues, and not issues that everyone feels comfortable talking about. They are issues I had no idea existed before I moved to Alaska. That's a really brief overview, but I'm happy to expand on any of those if anyone has any questions.
tokenadult|12 years ago
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/19/174761612/a-turning-point-for-...
Most of the intermountain west is very arid, so rather than "farming" as that is usually understood, the occupation tends to be ranching (keeping cattle).
About the leading causes of death, they tend to correlate strongly with poverty, and it's not surprising to find high rates in poorer rather than richer states.
hotpockets|12 years ago
0003|12 years ago
It looks like New Yorkers look both way when they cross the street.
pawn|12 years ago
aptwebapps|12 years ago
dzink|12 years ago
Houshalter|12 years ago
kybernetikos|12 years ago
For example, studies tell us that sitting more than three hours per day correlates with a reduced life expectancy: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/09/study-excessi... but that doesn't tell you that if you take someone who is sitting that much and make them stop it'll make any difference at all.
m_eiman|12 years ago
ekianjo|12 years ago
matthewisabel|12 years ago
It looks like a problem in the western part of the state, but I don't see any suggestion of why that is.
*Correction: Meant county instead of country.
ars|12 years ago
adventured|12 years ago
California, Arizona, Hawaii, Florida are among the best states for longevity. The mortality rates in Hawaii for example are the lowest, and California is #2. The numbers for Texas and New Mexico, while elevated, are still dramatically lower than the high mortality belt numbers.
Also, one of the biggest offenders is West Virginia, and having spent a lot of time there, it's not a particularly warm state about half the year (certainly not compared to Mississippi).
eliben|12 years ago
dragonwriter|12 years ago
Well, its the second best overall, but "almost every single category"? 1. Heart, it is on the low side but near the middle of the pack;
2. Cancer, it is one of the best;
3. Respiratory, it is on the low side but not very low;
4. Stroke it is near the middle of the pack;
5. Accident it is fairly low;
6. Alzheimer's its is significantly worse than average;
7. Diabetes it is near the middle of the pack;
8. Nephritis it is quite low;
9. Influenza it is a bit worse than average, but near the middle;
10. Drug it is slightly better than average;
11. Suicide it is a little better than average;
12. Motor vehicle it is quite low but far from the best;
13. Firearms it is quite low but far from the best;
14. Alcohol it is notably worse than average;
15. Parkinson's it is a little better than average;
16. Homicide it is a hair better than average;
17. HIV it is better than average but far from the best.
No, I don't think that counts as "suspiciously low in almost every single category".
ratsbane|12 years ago
Here's a table showing age distribution by state. This doesn't explain everything, but WV does have the highest percentage (16%) of 65-and-overs. That might explain their poor showing, but LA and MS are unremarkable there: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0016.p...
matsur|12 years ago
mililani|12 years ago
redemade|12 years ago
bitops|12 years ago
ballard|12 years ago