Leading Causes of Death in DuPage County, Illinois

Conclusions


Heart Disease and Malignant Neoplasms in DuPage County

Heart Disease and malignant neoplasms (cancer) were the top two leading causes of death for DuPage County residents irrespective of race or ethnicity. Although more men died of heart disease (n=922) in 1999 than women (n=765) heart disease as a percent of total deaths was essentially the same for both sexes. Malignant neoplasms were the leading cause of death in ages 25 to 74 and nearly 30 percent of malignant neoplasm deaths in DuPage County residents were among those under age 65. Lung cancer was the leading cause of malignant neoplasm deaths in DuPage County residents at 26.9 percent.


Accidents and Suicides in DuPage County

Accident deaths (unintentional injuries) were the leading cause of death for DuPage County residents aged 1 through 24. It was the second leading cause of death in 25 to 44 year olds. accident deaths, as a percent of total Hispanic deaths, were 10.1 percent. This percent was more than three times that of total accident deaths for DuPage County residents. The percent of deaths due to accidents was also higher among Asian & Pacific Islanders in DuPage County as compared to the Illinois percentage. There were 58 suicides (intentional self-harm) in DuPage County residents representing 1.0 percent all deaths respectively. However, suicide was the second leading cause of death in DuPage County residents aged 15 to 24.


Infant Deaths in DuPage County

There were 82 infant deaths (under age one) in 1999. The leading causes of death in infants were short gestation (prematurity) followed by congenital anomalies. These two causes account for more than half of all infant deaths. Infant deaths are also prevalent in the top ten causes of all deaths for Hispanics and Asian and Pacific Islanders. Deaths occurring in the perinatal period (22 weeks gestation through 7 days post delivery) were the fourth leading cause of deaths in DuPage County Hispanic residents and the tenth leading cause of death in Asian and Pacific Islander residents.


Action Items

Public health has many important roles to play in improving community health. To be sure, public health has a responsibility to promote health, prevent illness, injury, and death. It also has an important role to play in monitoring health status, investigating health problems and informing the community of behavioral and environmental risk factors. With respect to the leading causes of death in DuPage County, the public health agenda includes the following action items:

• Closely monitor trends in accident deaths for residents aged 1 through 44, especially in DuPage’s minority residents.
• Continue to assess the burden of chronic conditions including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes in all residents.
• Develop appropriate targets, consistent with HP 2010, for chronic conditions.
• Analyze behavioral risk factors such as smoking, diet, exercise and their relationship to chronic illness for all residents.
• Assess the health system’s ability to address risk factors that relate to cause of death occurring in infants.
• Closely monitor trends in suicide deaths for residents aged 15 through 44.
   

Using rankable causes of death is an appropriate method for presenting mortality statistics but there are some limitations. As previously stated there are effects of random variation when the number of deaths for a given population being considered are less than 100. There are also issues of comparability where the age distribution of the populations being compared are different. Leading causes of death for older populations tend to show higher rankings for heart disease, cancer, and cerebrovacular disease. Leading causes for younger populations show higher rankings for accidents and prenatal conditions. Even with these limitations, cause-of-death ranking is a useful community health assessment tool.
 

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¹ HP 2010 …..
² Anderson, RN, Deaths: Leading Causes for 1999, National Vital Statistics Report
   49(11) 2001.
³ Leading Causes of Death for Illinois: CDC WISQUARS
⁴ Leading Causes of Death for DuPage County: IDPH Vital Statistics
⁵ Illinois Cancer Deaths: IDPH IPLAN Data System
⁶ DuPage Cancer Deaths: IDPH Vital Statistics
⁷ Leading Causes of Death for Illinois: CDC WISQUARS
⁸ Leading Causes of Death for DuPage County: IDPH Vital Statistics
⁹ HP 2010
¹⁰ Community Health Status Report 2000

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