In 2020, the United States recorded 696,962 deaths that were attributable to heart disease, about 5.8% more such deaths than in the prior year.  Heart disease accounted for nearly 196,700 deaths in the twelve-state Southeastern U.S. in 2020.  With 229.9 deaths per 100,000 population, the Southeastern U.S. had a regional heart disease death rate that was 8.7% above the national average in 2020.  However, there was much disparity in the death rate from state to state, as half the states in the region had a heart disease rate in 2020 that was more than 20% higher than the national average.  A deeper examination of data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics provides the following state-level details about heart disease death rates in the Southeastern U.S.:

Heart Disease Death Rates in the Southeastern U.S.

State	Deaths	Population	Death Rate*
Alabama	14,739	4,921,532	299.5
Arkansas	8,621	3,030,522	284.5
Florida	49,287	21,733,312	226.8
Georgia	21,116	10,710,017	197.2
Kentucky	11,345	4,477,251	253.4
Louisiana	12,255	4,645,318	263.8
Mississippi	8,809	2,966,786	296.9
North Carolina	20,373	10,600,823	192.2
South Carolina	11,385	5,218,040	218.2
Tennessee	17,943	6,886,834	260.5
Virginia	15,678	8,590,563	182.5
West Virginia	5,123	1,784,787	287.0
Region	196,674	85,565,785	229.9
U.S.	696,962	329,484,123	211.5

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

Report Period: 2020

Source: CDC Wonder. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2020 on CDC WONDER Online Database, released in 2021. Data are from the Multiple Cause of Death Files, 1999-2020, as compiled from data provided by the 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. Accessed on July 16, 2022