Cancer accounted for more than 602,300 deaths in the U.S. in the 2020 calendar year.  In the four-state Southwestern U.S., there were more than 66,800 cancer deaths that year.   Consistent with a pattern seen nationally, the cancer death rate for men in the region was higher than it was for women.  That said, the cancer death rate in the Southwestern region for both genders was below the overall national average death rate from cancer in 2020.  That result was not particularly surprising in light of the fact that the Southwestern U.S. had the nation's second-lowest regional cancer death rate in 2020. A closer examination of data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics reveals the following about male vs. female cancer death rates in the Southwestern U.S. region:

Male vs. Female Cancer Death Rates in the Southwestern U.S.

	Deaths	Population	Death Rate*
Regionwide	66,835	42,869,262	155.9
Male	35,770	21,280,617	168.1
Female	31,065	21,588,645	143.9
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:  Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas

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 February 13, 2023