Gender disparities in mortality trends, Wisconsin, 1980-1995.
One of the major goals of Healthy People 2000 is to reduce health disparities among Americans. All-cause death counts and mortality rates for Wisconsin by age and gender were obtained by accessing the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) mortality information via WONDER, the CDC's web-based link to its databases. Mortality trends from 1980 to 1995 were assessed by gender and age overall, and for the leading causes of death. Indirect age standardization was used to assess changes in the mortality rates. From 1980 to 1995, mortality rates declined for males and females and in every age group in Wisconsin, leading to almost 5000 fewer deaths than expected in 1995. Although mortality rates continue to be higher among males in every age group, the rates are declining twice as fast among males (13%) than females (7%). There were 3721 fewer deaths among males, accounting for about 75% of the decline in deaths. This disparity resulted from differences in mortality trends from motor vehicle accidents and HIV among young adults and cardiovascular disease and cancer among older adults. Public health needs to carefully monitor mortality trends to assure that progress in disease prevention is achieved for males and females of all ages.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D002423:Cause of Death; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D012042:Registries; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014922:Wisconsin / Q000453:epidemiology