Physician Assistant Pay in the Great Lakes Region

May 2020 data published earlier this year by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) put the number of physician assistants (PA) employed in the U.S. at just over 125,000.  As of that time, the five-state Great Lakes region was home to a bit more than 16,000 physician assistants according to the BLS.  BLS data revealed the region to be weak one for physician assistant pay, as the PA annual mean wage level in each state in the region was below the national average.  A closer examination of BLS data from May 2020 revealed the following about physician assistant pay in the Great Lakes region:

Physician Assistant Pay in the Great Lakes Region

State	# Employed	Annual Mean Wages	Wage Rank*
IL	3,160	$110,190	34th
IN	1,650	$102,030	44th
MI	4,350	$111,050	32nd
OH	4,440	$107,600	40th
WI	2,580	$113,830	26th
U.S.	125,280	$116,080	-------

(*) annual mean wage ranking among the 50 states and the District of Columbia

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OES. Data extracted on April 24, 2021

Heart Disease Deaths in the Southeastern U.S.

Heart disease is the foremost cause of death in the U.S., accounting for more than 659,000 deaths in 2019, or approximately 23% of all deaths in the United States that year.  Despite its top position, the nation's heart disease death rate has dropped since the late 1990s thanks to advancements in medical knowledge and technology. From its 1999 level of 259.9 deaths per 100,000 population, the heart disease death rate had dropped to 200.8 deaths per 100,000 population by 2019, a decline of nearly 23%.  The twelve-state Southeastern U.S. saw its heart disease death rate drop about 22% in the twenty years from 1999, a slightly smaller improvement than the country as a whole. In both 1999 and 2019, the region's heart disease death rate was slightly worse than the national average.  A deeper look into data from the National Center for Health Statistics, a unit of the CDC, reveals the following about the trend in heart disease deaths in the Southeastern U.S. region:

Heart Disease Deaths in the Southeastern U.S.

Area/Deaths	1999	2009	2019
AL	13,419	12,021	13,448
AR	8,315	7,295	8,669
FL	51,434	41,274	47,144
GA	17,597	16,165	19,543
KY	12,098	9,728	10,742
LA	12,007	10,169	11,302
MS	9,336	7,530	7,997
NC	19,191	17,203	19,617
SC	9,981	9,068	10,579
TN	16,280	14,257	16,814
VA	15,329	13,397	15,062
WV	6,822	5,038	5,087
Region	191,809	163,145	186,004
U.S.	725,192	599,413	659,041
Area/Death Rate*	1999	2009	2019
AL	302.9	252.7	274.3
AR	313.6	251.8	287.3
FL	326.4	221.3	219.5
GA	218.7	168.0	184.1
KY	301.1	225.3	240.4
LA	269.2	226.4	243.1
MS	330.1	254.5	268.7
NC	241.4	182.1	187.0
SC	251.1	197.6	205.5
TN	288.7	226.1	246.2
VA	219.0	169.0	176.5
WV	376.5	272.7	283.8
Region	279.7	209.7	219.1
U.S.	259.9	195.4	200.8

(*) number of heart disease deaths per 100,000 population

Source: CDC Wonder. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2019 on CDC WONDER Online Database, released in 2020. Data are from the Multiple Cause of Death Files, 1999-2019, as compiled from data provided by the 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. Accessed on June 9, 2021