Causes of Death

During the twentieth century the primary causes of death in the United States changed. In the 1800s and early 1900s, infectious (communicable) diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, and diphtheria were the leading causes of death. These have been replaced by chronic diseases; heart disease, cancer (malignant neoplasms), and stroke (cerebrovascular diseases) were the three leading causes of death in 2001. (See Table 4.1.)

In 2001 the age-adjusted death rate (which accounts for changes in the age distribution of the population across time) for heart disease was 247.8 deaths per 100,000 people, while that for cancer was 196.0 per 100,000 persons. (See Table 4.1.) Together, these two diseases accounted for 51.9 percent of all deaths in the United States. Deaths from heart disease have been decreasing since 1950, while cancer mortality has been dropping only since 1990.

Not surprisingly, the leading causes of death vary by age...