Up to 39% of Premature Deaths Preventable, CDC Says

Up to 39% of Premature Deaths Preventable, CDC Says

Up to 39% of annual premature deaths from the 5 leading causes of death could be prevented, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

CDC researchers provide, for the first time, a state-by-state analysis of premature deaths of US residents for each of the 5 leading causes of death. The analysis, published in the May 2 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, covers deaths from 2008 to 2010.

The top 5 causes of death in 2010 were heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, and unintentional injuries.

The researchers calculated that from 2008 to 2010, the overall average number of annual deaths from the 5 leading causes in people younger than 80 years came to 895,317, or 66% of deaths from all causes during that period.

They calculated that the average number of potentially preventable deaths for each of the leading causes amounted to:

91,757 for heart disease, 34% of all heart disease deaths;

84,443 for cancer, 21% of all cancer deaths;

28,831 for chronic lower respiratory diseases, 39% of all of these deaths;

16,973 for stroke, 33% of all stroke deaths; and

36,836 for unintentional injuries, 39% of all of these deaths.

“As a doctor, it’s heartbreaking when we lose a single patient from a preventable condition, but as director of the nation’s prevention agency, it’s painful, almost beyond words to know that we’re losing well over 100,000 people every year in this country from diseases and injuries that easily could have been prevented,” CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, said at a news conference today.

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