News: Premature mortality for top causes of death higher in rural areas

In the United States, preventable premature mortality showed higher rates among individuals living in rural areas than those living in urban areas, and that divide seems to be growing, according to a recent CDC analysis. During the years 2010-2022, the mortality gap between the most rural and most urban U.S. counties decreased for unintentional injury but increased for cancer, heart disease, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke, MedPage Today reported.

Researchers used data from the National Vital Statistics System to calculate preventable premature deaths by urban-rural county classification from the five leading causes of death throughout this time period. They excluded deaths from COVID-19 to maintain consistency and better assess general trends over time. When assessing the most rural counties by the six urban-rural county classifications, percentages of preventable premature deaths were consistently higher than in large central metropolitan and fringe metropolitan.

For cancer, preventable premature deaths decreased from 21% to 0.3%, although large gaps remained. In 2022, premature deaths from cancer in rural areas was 18.1%, the report said, comparable to the 17.9% in large urban counties in 2010. "That doesn't mean there are no more preventable early deaths for cancer," said Macarena Garcia, DrPH, a senior health scientist at CDC's Office of Rural Health and lead researcher in a press briefing. Garcia cautioned that the drop to 0.3% for preventable cancer deaths was based on a benchmark from more than a decade ago. "We need to update that benchmark, and we'll be able to see what that looks like today," she concluded.

For heart disease, preventable premature deaths decreased from 33.5% to 28.8% from 2010 to 2019, but was followed by an increase to 33.6% from 2020 through June 2022. For chronic lower respiratory disease, there was a decrease from 38.6% to 25.5%.

Editor’s note: To read MedPage Today’s coverage of this story, click here. To read the CDC analysis, click here.