What’s killing us? Data shows leading causes of death in Fresno, California and the U.S.
COVID-19 has claimed the lives of hundreds of people in Fresno County since the coronavirus pandemic started in early 2020. But over a five-year period from 2016 through 2020, other diseases and conditions remained atop the list of leading causes of death not only in Fresno County, but throughout California and across the entire United States.
Heart diseases and various cancers are the largest killers of residents, both in terms of raw numbers and as an annual average rate per 100,000 residents. Heart diseases claimed the lives of almost 8,400 people in Fresno County from 2016 through 2020, while almost 6,700 deaths were attributed to cancer over the five-year period.
For the overall Fresno County population, those figures translate to an average annual death rate of about 170 per 100,000 residents for heart diseases, and about 135 per 100,000 for cancers.
The data on underlying causes of death come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and its National Center for Health Statistics. The CDC’s 2021 data was not included in the five-year averages because it remains provisional and is not yet final.
The death rate data, presented in the interactive chart below, reveals stark differences between men and women, and between different races and ethnic origins, in vulnerability to different causes of death.
Homicide, or death by assault, was far higher among Black or African Americans in Fresno County — a rate of 31.1 deaths per 100,000 residents, nearly four times the rate of the county’s population as a whole. It was also more than four times the rate for white residents, and almost four times the rate for Hispanic or Latino residents of any race.
Hispanic or Latino residents saw a far lower death rate from heart diseases than any other major demographic group in Fresno County, at fewer than 74 per 100,000 residents. The overall rate for the county was more than double that, at about 170 per 100,000. The rate for deaths from heart diseases among men of all races was 183 per 100,000, compared to a rate of about 151 per 100,000 for women.
As in Fresno County, heart diseases and cancer were also the leading killers over the five-year period in California and nationwide. Other leading causes of death were accidents and unintended injuries, cerebrovascular diseases including stroke; Alzheimer disease; chronic lower respiratory diseases such as emphysema, asthma and bronchitis; and diabetes.
While COVID-19 was a one-year outlier for the five-year span, the 937 deaths reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control ranked third behind heart diseases and cancer in 2020 in Fresno County.
New provisional data for 2021 reflects almost 1,400 coronavirus deaths last year in the county, vaulting above cancer for the one-year period. The 2021 data for Fresno County shows the following single-year death rates for the overall population:
- Heart diseases: 174.4 deaths per 100,000 residents.
- COVID-19: 139.3 deaths per 100,000.
- Cancer: 134.2 deaths per 100,000.
- Alzheimer’s disease: 52.6 deaths per 100,000.
- Cerebrovascular diseases: 42.0 deaths per 100,000.
- Accidents/unintended injuries: 40.7 per 100,000.
- Diabetes: 31.0 per 100,000.
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 28.9 per 100,000.
- Hypertension and related kidney disease: 22.9 per 100,000.
- Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis: 22.2 per 100,000.
The preliminary CDC data for 2021 shows that 77 homicides in Fresno County last year represented a rate of 7.7 deaths per 100,000 residents.
This story was originally published April 4, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
