U.S. deaths ordinarily rise slightly each year. The last decline in annual deaths occurred in 1997, a modest drop of 445 deaths from 1996, Minino said.And yet we've gotten so fat! Or is that layer of blubber -- like the embrace of a loving grandmother -- cushioning us as we fall through life.
The number of deaths has not dropped this steeply since 1938, when there were about 69,000 fewer than in 1937. A drop in 1944 came close - about 48,000 fewer deaths than the previous year....
Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death, accounting for 27 percent of the nation's deaths in 2004. Cancer was second, at about 23 percent, and strokes were third, at 6 percent.
The good news: The age-adjusted death rate for all three killers dropped. The heart disease rate declined more than 6 percent, the cancer rate about 3 percent, and the stroke rate about 6.5 percent.
April 23, 2006
Suddenly, something is keeping us alive.
Did you notice the stunning drop in the death rate? The National Center for Health Statistics reports that there was a 2 percent decrease in the death rate in the United States last year. 50,000 fewer people died last year than the year before.
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My wife and I attended a performance of the McCourt brother's revue: "A Couple of Blaguards" last evening.
Their best line:
Don't worry, doctor, we come from a long line of dead people.
Um...the ratio of deaths to births is still right around 1:1.
Mark Daniels
Mark: "Um...the ratio of deaths to births is still right around 1:1."
No it isn't. Whatever the current population of the world is is the number by which births exceed deaths. Not until the human race is extinct will the ration be 1 to 1.
Quality.
When you are unhappy, of course life seems interminably long.
Happiness is a right.
Peace, Maxine
Most of this rise is in the black community.
I wonder how this has to do with better HIV treatment?
Whoops- people are confusing rates and ratios and absolute numbers.
The death rate is the ratio of people who die (usually in a year) vs the people who were alive (that same year). It's got nothing to do with the birth rate, directly. It's not the same as the ratio between births and deaths (which is near 1, but lately has been bigger- hence the population increase we've been seeing the last several centuries).
And the death rate for any given year is not affected by the number of people who were ever alive.
I blame this on global warming and/or GW Bush. More live people..more customers available for buying oil. Odd timing that we invaded Iraq just about the time we have more live people.
Brian: I think Mark was making the philosophical point, that everyone who is born dies, not mixing anything up. I was responding on that level.
"Kind of a creepy way to look at it..."
A specialty of mine.
Our life expectancy beats that of Britain. Could be our cruel, unequal health system is better than their free and inadequate health system.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article_pfv.php?id=5669
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