Death & dying by the numbers

[zoegirltx]

I thought this touched on some fascinating topics we've discussed around here.


fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-does-it-mean-to-die-of-natural-causes/



What Does It Mean To Die Of Natural Causes?
By MONA CHALABI
Dear Mona,



I’m curious about the term “died of natural causes” and what ailments/events actually make that term up. It’s not just that one day people die because they’re old, but rather the kidneys or liver go out, or something else.

Brent Jenkins, Las Vegas


Dear Brent,


You’re right. The term “natural causes” tends to be used as an explanation when older people die. It’s almost used as a euphemism for “died of old age,” which I think most people recognize doesn’t really mean anything — but is “natural causes” equally hollow?


MONAIt does mean something according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A natural cause of death is anything that isn’t a non-natural cause of death (I know, I know, bear with me). When people kill themselves, are killed by someone else or die as the result of an accident, that’s considered non-natural. Any other cause is “natural.”


According to the latest CDC data, 2,596,993 people died in the U.S. in 2013. The vast majority of those deaths, 92.5 percent, were of natural causes. Thankfully, the data is more detailed than that, though — there are 46 categories of natural causes of death listed, as well as 44 subcategories. In the chart below, I’ve summarized the 10 natural causes responsible for the most deaths in 2013.



If I included everything, I’m afraid the chart would be a little too long — but you can find a full table of every cause that accounted for at least 0.1 percent of all deaths at the end of this article. That threshold does mean I’ve had to leave out some unusual causes of death, though. Like syphilis (which killed 49 people in 2013), salmonella (40 deaths), whooping cough (12), malaria (10) and scarlet fever (which killed one person).


You’re right, Brent: Once you start to unpack the “natural causes” category, things get complicated. After heart disease and cancer, which together accounted for almost half of all U.S. deaths in 2013, the largest category was “all other diseases.” It’s not shown on the chart, but this label covers 12 percent of deaths (most of them of people 75 and older, which does make it seem conspicuously like it’s commonly used to describe the deaths of older people).



Because cancer (described in the data as “malignant neoplasms”) accounted for such a large fraction of all deaths, I’ve broken out the 10 biggest cancer subcategories below.


There were 195,713 U.S. deaths in 2013 that resulted from non-natural causes (these are also known as “external causes of death”). The 10 most common non-natural causes of death are charted below.

Accidents accounted for two-thirds of all non-natural deaths in 2013. The most common type of accident was accidental poisoning, at 20 percent of all non-natural deaths, followed by motor-vehicle accidents (18 percent of all non-natural deaths) and falls (15 percent). Suicide, by whatever means, accounted for more than twice as many deaths as homicide. And, as Vox pointed out this week, firearms specifically are used in almost twice as many suicide deaths (21,175) as homicide deaths (11,208).


One category is striking here — the 516 deaths in 2013 that come under the label “legal intervention.” According to the World Health Organization codebook, which the CDC uses to classify deaths, this means the deaths resulted from “injuries inflicted by the police or other law-enforcing agents, including military on duty, in the course of arresting or attempting to arrest lawbreakers, suppressing disturbances, maintaining order, and other legal action.”


In a way, Brent, nobody really dies of “natural causes” — the numbers show there are thousands of diseases and conditions under that label. And yet, it’s equally true that the vast majority of people in America do die of natural causes.


Hope the numbers help,

Mona

[zoegirltx]

It's crazy to me that accidental poisoning kills more people than car crashes.....We do so much to make cars/roads safer & so many people are ultra paranoid about dying in a wreck, yet you are more likely to be poisoned!?!?  I need to know more about this... are we talking Alcohol/drug over dose?  Or food-borne illnesses??  Or ingesting chemicals (babies?) somehow?

[zoegirltx]

Another interesting chart - given our willingness to continue to let people smoke & the popularity of breast cancer "awareness"

[msmerymac]

Interesting. And good call on overdoses/alcohol being accidental poisoning. I'm sitting here, thinking, "surely botulism isn't quite the scourge it once was."

[LadySusan]

Oooh!  I love these sorts of articles and 538 gives good analysis.  This is gonna be good!

I have to go put my little to sleep but I'll be back!

[Deleted]

Poisoning = drug overdose

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5605a1.htm

"In 2004, poisoning was second only to motor-vehicle crashes as a cause of death from unintentional injury in the United States (1). Nearly all poisoning deaths in the United States are attributed to drugs, and most drug poisonings result from the abuse of prescription and illegal drugs (2). Previous reports have indicated a substantial increase in unintentional poisoning mortality during the 1980s and 1990s (2,3). To further examine this trend, CDC analyzed the most current data from the National Vital Statistics System. This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which determined that poisoning mortality rates in the United States increased each year from 1999 to 2004, rising 62.5% during the 5-year period. The largest increases were among females (103.0%), whites (75.8%), persons living in the southern United States (113.6%), and persons aged 15--24 years (113.3%). Larger rate increases occurred in states with mostly rural populations. Rates for drug poisoning deaths increased 68.3%, and mortality rates for poisonings by other substances increased 1.3%. The largest increases were in the "other and unspecified," psychotherapeutic, and narcotic drug categories. The results suggest that more aggressive regulatory, educational, and treatment measures are necessary to address the increase in fatal drug overdoses."

[decemberwedding07]

Huh. I had never thought about it before, but I know three people who died of drug overdoses, and two people who died in car accidents, so anecdote. One of those two wrecks had alcohol as a contributing factor. I wonder when you consider how many of those traffic fatalities were drug or alcohol related, if drugs and alcohol can actually be considered many times more likely to kill you.

[zoegirltx]

Aug 13, 2015 15:30:25 GMT -5 decemberwedding07 said:

Huh. I had never thought about it before, but I know three people who died of drug overdoses, and two people who died in car accidents, so anecdote. One of those two wrecks had alcohol as a contributing factor. I wonder when you consider how many of those traffic fatalities were drug or alcohol related, if drugs and alcohol can actually be considered many times more likely to kill you.

yea, I think the percentage of fatal crashes were drugs/alcohol are involved is pretty high.

[Velar Fricative]

I had no idea lung cancer was by far the leading cancer in terms of percentage of cancer deaths. It makes sense, I just figured others had more similar numbers. It does make me sad given the stigma of lung cancer.

[lg28]

Fascinating and also sad. I mean, I know that eventually we all die. But I find it awful to actually think about it. I have horrible anxiety about it.

[LadySusan]

Aug 13, 2015 14:42:18 GMT -5 zoegirltx said:

It's crazy to me that accidental poisoning kills more people than car crashes.....We do so much to make cars/roads safer & so many people are ultra paranoid about dying in a wreck, yet you are more likely to be poisoned!?!?  I need to know more about this... are we talking Alcohol/drug over dose?  Or food-borne illnesses??  Or ingesting chemicals (babies?) somehow?

I know that some of these are legal drugs.  I think tylenol/acetominophen is the biggie but it is often taken in combination with opiates or taken intentionally as part of a suicide attempt so it's hard to tease that data apart.