The most distinct cause of death in every US state

The most distinctive cause of death in New York and Connecticut was “inflammatory diseases of female pelvic organs.” In Maine and a handful of others, it was the flu.

That’s according to data from 2001 to 2010 rounded up in a new paper published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report itself is an attempt to contribute to the, uh, social media literature:

“Maps of the most distinctive or characteristic value of some variable at the state or country level became popular on social media in 2014,” researchers from the New York State Cancer Registry and New York State Department of Health write in the opening sentence of the peer-reviewed paper.

One of those popular maps showed the most distinctive causes of death in each state, but focused only on the top 10 causes. So the authors of the CDC-published paper decided to do one better. The map, below, shows the most distinctive of 113 causes of death published by the National Center for Health Statistics “to present a more nuanced view of mortality variation within the United States than what can be seen by using only the 10 most common causes of death,” the authors write.

A word of caution: the map does not show the main cause of death by state, which is basically heart disease or cancer. What it shows is the cause of death in each state that stands out most relative to its national average. Syphillis is the most distinctive cause of death in Louisiana, but it only resulted in 22 deaths there over that time period. HIV, the most distinctive cause of death in Florida, was behind 15,000 deaths there. The coding of deaths is also “highly variable” by state, meaning some capture in “other” categories may be more properly classified elsewhere.

“The map is also predisposed to showing rare causes of death — for 22 of the states, the total number of deaths mapped was under 100,” the authors note. “Using broader cause-of-death categories or requiring a higher threshold for the number of deaths would result in a different map.”

Anyway, here’s the map, followed by a list of the causes of death by state:

Alabama: Accidental discharge of firearms. (348 deaths)

Alaska: Water, air and space, and other and unspecified transport accidents and their sequelae. (270 deaths)

Arizona: Discharge of firearms, undetermined intent. (147 deaths)

Arkansas: Discharge of firearms, undetermined intent. (73 deaths)

California: Hyperplasia of prostate. (937 deaths)

Colorado: Atherosclerosis. (3457 deaths)

Connecticut: Inflammatory diseases of female pelvic organs. (19 deaths)

Delaware: Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, so described. (3299 deaths)

District of Columbia: Human immunodeficiency virus. (1977 deaths)

Florida: Human immunodeficiency virus. (15563 deaths)

Georgia: Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified. (18434 deaths)

Hawaii: Other nutritional deficiencies. (26 deaths)

Idaho: Water, air and space, and other and unspecified transport accidents and their sequelae. (207 deaths)

Illinois: Other disorders of kidney. (12 deaths)

Indiana: Other and unspecified events of undetermined intent and their sequelae. (1717 deaths)

Iowa: Other and unspecified acute lower respiratory infections. (26 deaths)

Kansas: Other and unspecified acute lower respiratory infections. (46 deaths)

Kentucky: Pneumoconioses and chemical effects. (449 deaths)

Louisiana: Syphilis. (22 deaths)

Maine: Influenza. (154 deaths)

Maryland: Other and unspecified events of undetermined intent and their sequelae. (6588 deaths)

Massachusetts: Other and unspecified events of undetermined intent and their sequelae. (3077 deaths)

Michigan: Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, so described. (37292 deaths)

Minnesota: Other and unspecified acute lower respiratory infections. (28 deaths)

Mississippi: Other and unspecified malignant neoplasms of lymphoid, hematopoietic and related tissue. (18 deaths)

Missouri: Meningococcal infection. (31 deaths)

Montana: Acute and rapidly progressive nephritic and nephrotic syndrome. (11 deaths)

Nebraska: Other and unspecified acute lower respiratory infections. (32 deaths)

Nevada: Legal intervention. (82 deaths)

New Hampshire: Other nutritional deficiencies. (14 deaths)

New Jersey: Septicemia. (18353 deaths)

New Mexico: Legal intervention. (77 deaths)

New York: Inflammatory diseases of female pelvic organs. (97 deaths)

North Carolina: Other nutritional deficiencies. (103 deaths)

North Dakota: Influenza. (83 deaths)

Ohio: Other and unspecified acute lower respiratory infections. (73 deaths)

Oklahoma: Other acute ischemic heart diseases. (8623 deaths)

Oregon: Legal intervention. (110 deaths)

Pennsylvania: Pneumoconioses and chemical effects. (1470 deaths)

Rhode Island: Other and unspecified events of undetermined intent and their sequelae. (589 deaths)

South Carolina: Other acute ischemic heart diseases. (2094 deaths)

South Dakota: Influenza. (141 deaths)

Tennessee: Accidental discharge of firearms. (336 deaths)

Texas: Tuberculosis. (679 deaths)

Utah: Other and unspecified events of undetermined intent and their sequelae. (2380 deaths)

Vermont: Other nutritional deficiencies. (16 deaths)

Virginia: Other acute ischemic heart diseases. (5136 deaths)

Washington: Meningococcal infection. (47 deaths)

West Virginia: Pneumoconioses and chemical effects. (882 deaths)

Wisconsin: Other and unspecified acute lower respiratory infections. (26 deaths)

Wyoming: Influenza. (49 deaths)

Copyright: Washington Post