Epidemiology for Public Health Practice 5th Edition by Robert Friis,Thomas Sellers

Exercise 10

The following questions refer to Figure 1.
a. List and describe the trends in death rates by the five leading causes of death.
b. Describe the trend for hypertension and Parkinson's disease. Can you suggest an explanation for the trends in hypertension and Parkinson's disease deaths?
c. Does the curve for accidental deaths correspond to our expectations from various publicity reports?
d. What is the trend for Alzheimer's disease? Can you offer an explanation?
Figure 1 Age-adjusted death rates for selected leading causes of death: United States, from 1958 to 2008. Source: Reproduced from Miniño AM, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD. Deaths: Final Data for 2008. National Vital Statistics Reports ; Vol. 59, No. 10. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2011.