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Deaths: Final Data
for 1999. NVSR Volume 49, No. 8. 114 pp. (PHS) 2001-1120. View/download PDF
1 MB
Deaths: Final Data for
1999," prepared by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics,
is a comprehensive report on mortality patterns in the United States,
based on all death records in the United States for 1999. This latest
report incorporates several significant methodological changes, including
a more up-to-date age distribution for the U.S. population for calculating
age-adjusted death rates and an updated cause-of-death classification and
coding system--the Tenth Revision of the International Classification of
Diseases, issued by the World Health Organization (ICD-10).
Highlights of the
report include:
Life
expectancy for the U.S. population remained unchanged at 76.7 years in
1999. However, life expectancy increased for men from 73.8 years to 73.9
years between 1998 and 1999, while decreasing for women over the same
period (from 79.5 years to 79.4 years).
The
infant mortality rate inched down to 7.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live
births in 1999, compared with 7.2 in 1998. Nearly 1 in 10 infant deaths
were from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). There were a total of 2,648
deaths from SIDS in 1999, down from 2,822 deaths in 1998.
Age-adjusted
death rates decreased for 6 of the 15 leading causes of death between
1998 and 1999, including cancer (less than 1 percent); stroke (nearly 2
percent); influenza/pneumonia (2.5 percent); suicide (over 5 percent);
homicide (4.6 percent); and aortic aneurysm (nearly 5 percent).
Age-adjusted
death rates increased for 5 of the 15 leading causes of death,
including septicemia (6.6 percent); hypertension (5 percent); chronic
lower respiratory diseases (4 percent), and diabetes (3.3 percent).
Age-adjusted
death rates for three leading causes of death, heart disease, accidents or
"unintentional injuries," and chronic liver disease, did not
change significantly between 1998 and 1999.
The
new cause-of-death classification system resulted in a significant shift
in ranking for Alzheimer’s disease. In 1998 Alzheimer’s disease
ranked 12th among leading causes of death but jumped to 8th in 1999, due
mainly to the inclusion of a cause of death formerly classified separately
as "presenile dementia," which accounted for a substantial
number of additional Alzheimer’s deaths in 1999. In total there were
44,536 deaths from Alzheimer’s disease in 1999.
Mortality
from HIV infection, which dropped more than 70 percent over the previous
three years (1996-98), continued to decline at a much slower pace in
1999, decreasing nearly 4 percent. Though it is no longer ranked among the
leading causes of death in the United States, HIV infection still ranks
fifth among
25-44 year-olds, and is the leading cause of death for black men in this
age group. Among black women in this age group, HIV ranks third.
In
1999 a total of 28,874 persons died from firearm injuries in the United
States, down nearly 6 percent from the 30,625 deaths in 1998.
In
1999 a total of 19,102 persons died of drug-induced causes, which includes
not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of drugs, but also
poisoning from medically prescribed and other drugs. This does not include
deaths from accidents, homicides, or other causes indirectly related to
drug use.
A
total of 19,171 persons died in 1999 from alcohol-induced causes, which
includes dependent and nondependent use of alcohol and accidental
poisoning from alcohol. This total excludes accidents, homicides, and other
causes indirectly related to alcohol use. The total also excludes deaths
from fetal alcohol syndrome.
"Deaths: Final
Data for 1999" can be viewed or downloaded from the CDC
Home Page.
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