Heart Disease Deaths in the Rocky Mountain Region

Heart disease accounted for over 659,000 deaths in 2019 (approximately 23% of all deaths in the U.S. that year), making it the leading cause of death in the United States.  The good news on heart disease is that advancements in medical know how have lowered the heart disease death rate over the past twenty years. From a 1999 level of 259.9 deaths per 100,000 population, by 2019 the death rate from heart disease had dropped to 200.8 deaths per 100,000 population.  The bad news is that the heart disease death rate in the U.S. has been inching back up since the middle of the last decade.  The five-state Rocky Mountain region has likewise seen its heart disease death rate trend downward in the past two decades, although the improvement was less than the nation as a whole. That said, with a heart disease death rate that was 27% below than the national average in 2019, the Rocky Mountain region had a heart disease death rate that was lower than every other region of the country.  A deeper look into data from the National Center for Health Statistics reveals the following about the trend in heart disease deaths in the Rocky Mountain region:

Heart Disease Deaths in the Rocky Mountain Region

Area/Deaths	1999	2009	2019
CO	6,420	6,093	7,762
ID	2,532	2,398	3,061
MT	2,049	1,832	2,290
UT	2,786	2,813	3,882
WY	1,009	964	1,067
Region	14,796	14,100	18,062
U.S.	725,192	599,413	659,041
Area/Death Rate*	1999	2009	2019
CO	151.9	122.5	134.8
ID	198.5	154.3	171.3
MT	228.3	186.2	214.3
UT	126.4	103.3	121.1
WY	205.2	172.2	184.4
Region	162.7	130.6	145.7
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