In 2020, over 602,300 deaths in the U.S. were attributed to cancer, the nation's second leading cause of death after heart disease.  The five-state Rocky Mountain region accounted for nearly 17,900 of those cancer deaths.   In keeping with a pattern seen nationally, the cancer death rate for women in the Rocky Mountain states was modestly lower than it was for men.  Cancer death rates for both genders in the region were lower than the national average, which is not surprising given that the Rocky Mountain states collectively had the lowest regional cancer death rate in the nation in 2020. Further examination of data from the National Center for Health Statistics, a unit of the CDC, provides the following details about male vs. female cancer death rates in the Rocky Mountain region:

Male vs. Female Cancer Death Rates in the Rocky Mountain Region

	Deaths	Population	Death Rate*
Regionwide	17,883	12,547,416	142.5
Male	9,554	6,320,743	151.2
Female	8,329	6,226,673	133.8
Nationwide	602,350	329,484,123	182.8
Male	317,731	162,256,202	195.8
Female	284,619	167,227,921	170.2

(*) number of cancer deaths per 100,000 population

Report Period: 2020

States in Region:  Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming

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 January 30, 2023