26 january 2016

Every time we have more information about illnesses, their cause and how to cure them but, which are the most common? The Flowing Data website created a series of interactive graphics from the data provided by the USA Government in order to know the most common causes of death per percentage according to the ethnical group or genre. Complete graphics available here. 

What is the significance of this data? We can be aware of the impact of illnesses in the last years and know, from an objective point of view, the pathologies affecting a large number of people in the last years. This can lead us to direct the medical researches of new drugs or therapies responding to the current needs. 

These graphics only collect data from the USA, where the life expectancy is much lower than in Spain, but it helps us to discover the great existing differences according to the age and race regarding mortality. In general, we can highlight that there are pathologies affecting mainly new born babies, that in teenagers and people under 30 years is common to die from external causes (car accidents, homicides, suicides, etc.) and the diseases of the circulatory system are more present as we become older. 

Illnesses such as cancer are more common between people of 40 and 60 years and once they are over the 70 there is a low death rate caused by this pathology. Cancer causes the 22% of the deaths of American women. It has a peak during childhood, it decreases in youth and starts increasing again after the 40s: the death rate becomes lower in men as the years went by but this is not the case of women, since the illness is present in every age. 

Diseases of the circulatory system are the most common death cause in all ethnic groups. These diseases mean the 32% of the deaths of white people: starting to appear at the 30s and becoming more common in the following years, increasing enormously once they are 70 or more.

This graphics point out that respiratory diseases affect differently according to the ethnical group. They represent an 8% of the deaths in Asiatic people and those living in the Pacific islands, becoming stronger during their old age. In Afro-American people represent a 10% of the deaths in childhood and it remains constant during their lifetime. 

In conclusion: a person under the 30s has many possibilities of dying for external causes and after the 40s, diseases with a high mortality death start to appear, for example pathologies of the respiratory and circulatory system.