Leading Causes of Death by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: United States, 1992

Among Hispanics and blacks aged 25-44 years, the leading cause of death in 1992 was HIV infection, while among whites it was accidents. For the age group 25-29 years, the leading causes for these groups were, respectively, accidents, homicides and accidents, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). "Leading Causes of Death by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Orgin: United States, 1992," was produced in response to requests for race and ethnic data in greater age detail than routinely available. This report presents rankings of cause-of-death data for white, black, and Hispanic males and females using three alternative age classifications compared with the one age classification that is typically published.

Detailed tables, illustrating the effect different age aggregations have on the ranking of causes of death, and issues concerning the use of alternative age aggregations are presented in this report. Also presented are the standard cause of death ranking procedures used by NCHS, other agencies of the Public Health Service, and many State public health agencies.

NCHS publishes leading cause of death data annually in several publications including Vital Statistics of the United States, Mortality, Volume II, Part A; Monthly Vital Statistics Report, "Advance Report of Final Mortality Statistics"; and Health, United States. These reports usually present rankings for the 10 or 15 leading causes of death for a given calender year.

This page last reviewed January 11, 2007