The mortality from Arteriosclerotic and Hypertensive heart diseases in the United States: I. possible relation to distribution of population and economic status

Abstract

A study was made of the mortality rates from Arteriosclerotic and from Hypertensive heart disease in the United States and compared with the distribution of the population and the economic status in the various states of the country. The mortality rates from Arteriosclerotic heart disease were found to vary markedly in the various regions and states of the country. They were generally much higher than the mortality rates from Hypertensive heart disease. No parallelism was found in the mortality rates from the two diseases. With some exceptions there appears to be a relationship between the concentration of population per square mile, the percentage of people living in the urban regions and the mortality rates from Arteriosclerotic heart disease in the various states. The higher the concentration of people per square mile and the greater the urban population in a given state, the greater is the mortality rate in that state. There also appears to be in many instances some relationship between the death rate from Arteriosclerotic heart disease and the income per capita in the different states. These relationships speak for differences in the modes of living as factors that enter into the etiology of this disease. No relationship appears to exist between the death rates from Hypertensive heart disease and concentration of population or income per capita. The lack of parallelism in the behavior of the two diseases in the different states suggests that not all the etiologic factors of the two diseases are the same.