Heart Disease Deaths in the Southwest

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in U.S., accounting for more than 659,000 deaths in 2019, or about 23% of all deaths in the United States that year.  Advances in medical knowledge have contributed significantly to a decline in the heart disease death rate over the past twenty years. From 259.9 deaths per 100,000 population in 1999, by 2019 the heart disease death rate had dropped to 200.8 deaths per 100,000 population.  Even so, the heart disease death rate nationally has been creeping back up since the middle of the last decade.  The national experience with heart disease deaths is mirrored in the U.S. Southwest, where the 2019 death rate of 174.7 per 100,000 population was nearly 22% lower than it was in 1999.  A deeper look at data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, reveals the following about the trend in heart disease deaths in the Southwest region of the United States:

Heart Disease Deaths in the Southwest

Area/Deaths	1999	2009	2019
AZ	10,800	10,273	12,587
NM	3,452	3,214	4,245
OK	11,263	9,202	10,960
TX	43,418	38,077	46,139
Region	68,933	60,766	73,931
U.S.	725,192	599,413	659,041
Area/Death Rate*	1999	2009	2019
AZ	215.0	162.0	172.9
NM	190.9	157.8	202.4
OK	327.7	247.5	277.0
TX	211.2	153.5	159.1
Region	223.6	164.7	174.7
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