CDC: Hundreds of thousands of Americans die unnecessarily every year

Karen Kaplan, LA Times
1:11 PM PDT, May 1, 2014

Health disparities in the U.S. lead to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths each year, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If all Americans had equal access to the best preventive care currently available somewhere in the country, roughly 20% to 40% of premature deaths from the five leading causes of death could be avoided, CDC researchers calculated.

Every year, about 895,000 Americans under the age of 80 die as a result of heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke and accidents, government data show. But many of them didn’t have to.

To figure out how many people fit into that category, the researchers calculated the mortality rates for each of those five causes of death in each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Then they looked for the three states with the lowest rates in each category and averaged them. That average was used as the best-case scenario.

(More here.)