CDC: More Heart Disease and Cancer Deaths May Be Preventable in Rural Areas

In 2017, nearly half of all deaths from heart disease in rural areas may have been preventable, a new report says.

Heart disease and cancer contributed to about 44% of all deaths in the U.S. in 2017.

THE URBAN-RURAL GAP HAS widened for several leading causes of death in the U.S. in recent years, a new report says.

Rural communities have seen higher mortality rates than urban areas for decades, tied to factors like higher poverty rates, less access to quality health care and populations that tend to skew older. But between 2010 and 2017, the gap widened between urban and rural areas for the share of deaths from cancer, heart disease and lower respiratory illnesses that may have been preventable among people younger than 80 – even as cancer deaths fell and other causes of death remained relatively stable nationwide, according to the report from theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We are encouraged to find that preventable deaths from cancer have gone down overall, yet there is a persistent and striking gap between rural and urban Americans for this and other leading causes of death," CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in a statement.

While still a disparity, the urban-rural gap for stroke deaths remained "relatively stable" between 2010 and 2017, the study found. That gap narrowed, however, for preventable deaths from unintentional injuries – which include drug overdoses, car accidents and falls – primarily because urban areas saw a surge in such deaths in recent years, largely tied to the opioid crisis, while rural communities saw smaller increases in accidental deaths.

In all, cancer, heart disease, stroke, respiratory diseases and unintentional injuries cause more than 1.7 million deaths per year in the U.S., with heart disease and cancer accounting for about 44% of all deaths nationwide in 2017, the report notes.

CDC researchers analyzed the number of "potentially excess deaths" among people younger than 80 for six county classifications along the urban-rural spectrum – large central metro areas, large fringe metro areas, medium metro areas, small metro areas, micropolitan areas and noncore areas – and found that many of these deaths may be preventable, especially in rural areas.

In 2017, for example, 44.9% of heart disease deaths may have been preventable in the most-rural areas, compared with 18.5% of deaths in the suburbs of major cities. Among deaths from chronic lower respiratory disease, meanwhile, 57.1% may have been preventable in rural counties, compared with 13.1% in the largest urban areas.

"There are proven strategies for reducing health risks like cigarette smoking and obesity and we need to redouble our prevention efforts to reach those living in rural areas, where risks tend to be higher," Redfield said.

Yet rural America is not a monolith, with community characteristics and health outcomes varying widely across the U.S. In 2017, for example, 55.8% of heart disease deaths may have been preventable in rural communities in southeastern states, compared with 13% in rural counties in New England.

Understanding regional differences in urban-rural mortality trends could help public health officials "develop more specific programs and policies that address risk factors and improve the health of residents living in rural counties." the report said.