For the first time, cancer surpassed heart disease as the leading cause of death for Kansans.
That’s from among the findings in the 2009 Annual Summary of Vital Statistics released today by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
“It’s certainly too early to tell whether cancer surpassing heart disease as the leading cause of death will become a trend, but it is an area we will continue to watch,” said Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips, state health officer and director of KDHE’s Division of Health. “Both causes of death have been declining in recent years, with mortality from heart disease falling faster than mortality from cancer.”
The report, which provides a baseline for assessing the health of Kansans, showed decreases in 2009 in both heart disease and infant mortality.
In 2009, a total of 290 infant deaths occurred (7.0 infant deaths per 1,000 live births), 13 fewer than in 2008.
The age-adjusted death rate for heart disease dropped 6.3 percent between 2008 and 2009.
KDHE Acting Secretary John Mitchell said officials remain troubled by the state’s infant mortality rate.
“A particularly troubling public health issue in Kansas is the high infant mortality rate – despite a decline from 2007 to 2009, the rate still remains too high,” Mitchell said in a prepared statement.
Other report highlights:
- In 2009, a total of 41,388 births were registered to Kansas residents, 427 fewer than in 2008.
- The percent of Kansas mothers receiving inadequate prenatal care (14.9) decreased 5.7 percent between 2008 and 2009.
- Out-of-wedlock births accounted for 37.6 percent of all live births. But the 2009 teen pregnancy rate (26.8 per 1,000 female teens) was less than the 28.6 percent in 2008.
- The disparity in the infant, neonatal and post neonatal death rates between White non-Hispanics and Black non-Hispanics continues to be a public health concern. The Black non-Hispanic infant death rate (15.5 percent) is 2.6 times higher than the rate for White non-Hispanics (6 percent).
- Kansas increased in population to 2,818,747 residents in 2009 from 2,802,134 in 2008. In the last five years (2005-2009) frontier and rural counties continued to lose population; while semi-urban and urban counties gained in population.
- Unintentional injuries were the leading cause of death for Kansans between the ages of 1 and 4 and those between the ages of 15 and 44. For the first time, cancer was the leading cause of death for children ages 5 through 14.