These declines in CHD and stroke mortality rates for the US seem too large to be true:
During the past decade [the 2000s], the age-adjusted coronary heart disease and stroke death rates declined from 195 to 126 per 100,000 population and from 61.6 to 42.2 per 100,000 population, respectively, continuing a trend that started in the 1900s for stroke and in the 1960s for coronary heart disease.
That a 35% and a 31.5% decline in just ten years. How can this be? The source is the CDC. This success should be touted more...usual health care interventions don't work all that well. Why isn't this success better known? If this decline is real, when will it bottom out? It would seem that there is still quite a way to go. [How is age adjustment done? Is the age profile stable through time? Is a 30% decline in age-adjusted mortality equivalent to moving mortality events to an older age? How much older? It could not be that much older if the age-mortality gradient is steep, as it is.]
A bit of googling suggests that CDC data does show this rapid decline in age-adjusted CHD and stroke mortality rates for the US. I found this for Australia -- these are indeed large declines:
I think it's all about decline in rates of tobacco use and the invention of statins.
Posted by: David | May 27, 2011 at 12:48 AM