Sharp drop in U.S. death rate surprises experts
More Americans staying alive, with biggest decline in deaths since 1940s
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ATLANTA - In what appears to be an amazing success for American medicine, preliminary government figures released Wednesday showed that the annual number of deaths in the U.S. dropped by nearly 50,000 in 2004 — the biggest decline in more than 60 years.
The 2 percent decrease, reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, comes as a shock to many, because the U.S. is growing in population, aging and getting fatter. In fact, some experts said they suspect the numbers may not hold up when a final report is released later this year.
Nevertheless, center officials said the statistics, based on a review of about 90 percent of death records reported in all 50 states in 2004, were consistent across the country and were deemed solid enough to report.
The center said drops in the death rates for heart disease, cancer and stroke accounted for most of the decline.
Historical decline
“We were surprised by the sharpness of the decrease. It’s kind of historical,” said statistician Arialdi Minino, lead author of the report.
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The government also said that U.S. life expectancy has inched up again to 77.9 years, a record high but still behind that of about two dozen other countries.
The preliminary number of U.S. deaths recorded for 2004 was 2,398,343. That represents a decline of 49,945 from the 2,448,288 recorded in 2003.
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. The last drop in deaths of this magnitude occurred in 1944, when the number dropped about 48,000 from the previous year, he said.
“These are preliminary data,” said Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Atlanta’s Emory University. “But if it holds up, it’s obviously very good news.”
To see such a giant drop after years of annual increases was a little hard to swallow for some.
“We will not make much of this until the final data come out,” said Elizabeth Ward, director of surveillance research for the American Cancer Society.
Overall, age-adjusted death rates fell to a record low of 801 deaths per 100,000 population in 2004, down from almost 833 deaths per 100,000 in 2003.
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Three killers get less deadly
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.
Improvements in medical care, particularly in medications aimed at preventing heart disease, at least partly explain the improvements in the heart disease death rate, said Ken Thorpe, an Emory professor of health policy.
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