Latest mortality data in US - how are we doing?

The Center for Disease Control(CDC) published the National statistics report last week.....with data from 2008.
Some of the interesting data :
1. The age-adjusted death rate decreased from 760.2 deaths per 100,000 population in 2007 to
758.7 deaths per 100,000 population in 2008. Hawaii had the lowest mortality rate whereas west virginia had the highest.

2. Life expectancy went from 75.4 to 75.3 years for males in 2008, and from 80.4 to 80.3 years for females.White females have the highest life expectancy, followed by, in order, black females, white
males, and black males. This pattern has not changed from 1976 through 2008, even though life expectancy for all groups has generally increased over this time period.

3. The 10 leading causes of death are : Diseases of heart, Malignant neoplasms,chronic lower respiratory illness,Cerebrovascular diseases, Accidents (unintentional injuries),Alzheimers disease, Diabetes mellitus, pneumonia and influenza, nephritis & nephrotic syndrome, and septicemia. The only significant change in this list is that cerebrovascular disease has dropped from 3rd place(for last 5 decades) to to 4th due to a large reduction in stroke related deaths.

4. The preliminary age-adjusted death rate for the leading cause of death, Diseases of heart,
decreased by 2.2 percent. The age-adjusted death rate for Malignant neoplasms decreased by 1.6
percent . Deaths from these two diseases combined accounted for 48.0 percent of deaths in the United States in 2008 ! Other leading causes of death that showed significant decreases in 2008 relative to 2007 were:
Accidents (unintentional injuries) (3.5 percent), Diabetes mellitus (3.1 percent), and Assault (homicide)
(3.3 percent)

5. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease was not among the 15 leading causes of death in 2008.
The preliminary age-adjusted death rate for HIV disease declined by 10.8 percent from 2007 to 2008.
6. The mortality due to Clostridium difficle has been increasing steadily over the last decade.... In 2008, C. difficile ranked as the 18th leading cause of death(2.3 deaths per 100,000 population) for the population aged 65 years and older. Approximately 93% of deaths from C. difficile occurred to people 65 years and older.

These are some interesting facts .....and it looks like there has been a great progress in managing these complicated disease processes. There is still a lot of scope for improvisation in delaying the inevitable!
On the whole......a good job. Have a look at the report below........
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_02.pdf