3 ms·

I think this is the relevant data: 1991: page 9 of http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lead1900_98.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lead1900_98.pdf 2011: pag

• danieltillett 12y ago
  Wow this data is not easy to compare. In 1991 the death rate from Cancer was 514,657 out of 2,169,518 deaths (23.7%). In 2011 it was 575,313 out of 2,512,873 deaths (22.9%). This does not look like a 22% drop to me any way you dice the numbers. Over the same time heart disease dropped from 720,862 in 1991 to 596,339 in 2011. This is much more impressive.
  • ejstronge 12y ago
    I think you and the news article are thinking of different statistics. The metric described in the news article is deaths by cancer per 100,000 individuals. What you calculated is the percentage of deaths due to cancer. I don't have access to the scientific article that was the foundation of this news piece but it looks like the reduction in death rate was not the authors' main point [1]. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24890451 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24890451
    • danieltillett 12y ago
      Yes it looks like they are using the age adjusted rate. The problem is it looks like almost most causes of death have fallen in an age adjusted rate by about 20% also. This is great news, but I am not sure why cancer was singled out.