The report praises prevention activities and medical treatment progress in three of the major causes of death in the United States: heart disease, cancer, and stroke. In fact, according to study, the incidence of heart disease dropped from 217 per 100,000 people in 2004 to 210.3 in 2005. Cancer incidences fell from 185.8 to 183.8 and stroke frequencies were reduced from 50 to 46.6. On the other hand, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease both increased about 5% from 2004 to 2005.

Infant mortality stayed about the same from 2004 to 2005, at about 6.89 deaths per 1,000 live births. The difference between life expectancies of males and females remains at about 5.2 years. The gap, however, has been decreasing for the last twenty-five years at about a rate of one-tenth of a year every year.

Within the report, the leading causes of death in the United States are (in order of most frequency): diseases of heart; malignant neoplasms (cancer); cerebrovascular diseases (stroke); chronic lower respiratory diseases; accidents (unintentional injuries); diabetes mellitus (diabetes); Alzheimer’s disease; influenza and pneumonia; nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease); septicemia (blood disease), intentional self-harm (suicide); chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, essential (primary) hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension); Parkinson’s disease; and assault (homicide).

However, the United States still trails in life expectancy statistics when compared to the countries of Andorra (83.5 years), followed by Japan, Macau, San Marino, and Singapore, in that order. At least thirty-five other countries are also ahead of the United States with respect to average lifetimes.

Highlights from the report appear at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/prelimdeaths05/prelimdeaths05.htm.

The report is available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ (specifically, at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/prelimdeaths05/prelimdeaths05.htm).

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