Assessment, Statistics, and Research

What are the leading causes of death in the United States? Based on what you have read or learned from news sources, what did you expect to see in the top five? If you thought of one that is missing, perhaps it is in the top 10. Still, when you look at the numbers, you may be surprised to learn how few people die in a given year, given the size of the US population. My point in this post is that we ought to examine total data instead of being guided by the headlines of news stories and misleading charts when we want to understand a health or social condition. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the five leading causes of death in 2017 were heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke. The report includes more causes, but I chose the top five based on the deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population. When you add the numbers for the five causes, you find the top five causes of death accounted for 445 peo...