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Background Cardiovascular and cancer mortality are the two leading causes of death in the developed world including the USA. However, mortality trends for these diseases are highly dynamic, and the geographic landscape is in transition. We analyze patterns of mortality improvement at county level during recent decades focusing on mortality decline and geographic diversity. Methods We grouped age-adjusted mortality rates of cardiovascular and cancer diseases from CDC WONDER for 2959 US counties into 3-year time periods to improve reliability. We calculated percent mortality decrease between 1981–83 and 2016–19 for both causes to quantify mortality improvements for counties. Results Using standard deviation as an index of disparities, place-based cancer mortalities were 68% larger than cardiovascular disparities. Significantly, 566 US counties had same or higher rates of cancer mortality in 2019 as in 1981. The geographic distribution of mortality improvement in either cause tends to favor largely populated areas along coasts. Less-populated, rural places in the interior and southeastern regions were experiencing less improvement. Conclusions At the county level, large place-based disparities exist for both causes of death with the magnitude of disparities being substantially larger for the reduction in cancer deaths. Put differently, place matters, more for cancer than cardiovascular mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low neighborhood socioeconomic status has been linked to adverse health outcomes. However, it is unclear whether changing the neighborhood may influence health. We examined 10-year change in neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation in relation to mortality rate among 288,555 participants aged 51–70 years who enrolled in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study in 1995–1996 (baseline) and did not move during the study. Changes in neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation between 1990 and 2000 were measured by US Census data at the census tract level. All-cause, cardiovascular disease, and cancer deaths were ascertained through annual linkage to the Social Security Administration Death Master File between 2000 and 2011. Overall, our results suggested that improvement in neighborhood socioeconomic status was associated with a lower mortality rate, while deterioration was associated with a higher mortality rate. More specially, a 30-percentile-point reduction in neighborhood deprivation among more deprived neighborhoods was associated with 11% and 19% reductions in the total mortality rate among men and women, respectively. On the other hand, a 30-point increase in neighborhood deprivation in less deprived neighborhoods was associated with an 11% increase in the mortality rate among men. Our findings support a longitudinal association between changing neighborhood conditions and mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the associations of leukocyte telomere length (LTL) with all-cause, cardiovascular disease, and cancer mortality in 12,199 adults participating in 2 population-based prospective cohort studies from Europe (ESTHER) and the United States (Nurses' Health Study). Blood samples were collected in 1989-1990 (Nurses' Health Study) and 2000-2002 (ESTHER). LTL was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We calculated z scores for LTL to standardize LTL measurements across the cohorts. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to calculate relative mortality according to continuous levels and quintiles of LTLz scores. The hazard ratios obtained from each cohort were subsequently pooled by meta-analysis. Overall, 2,882 deaths were recorded during follow-up (Nurses' Health Study, 1989-2010; ESTHER, 2000-2015). LTL was inversely associated with age in both cohorts. After adjustment for age, a significant inverse trend of LTL with all-cause mortality was observed in both cohorts. In random-effects meta-analysis, age-adjusted hazard ratios for the shortest LTL quintile compared with the longest were 1.23 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.04,1.46) for all-cause mortality, 1.29 (95% CI: 0.83, 2.00) for cardiovascular mortality, and 1.10 (95% CI: 0.88, 1.37) for cancer mortality. In this study population with an age range of 43-75 years, we corroborated previous evidence suggesting that LTL predicts all-cause mortality beyond its association with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A small change in tea consumption at population level could have large impact on public health. However, the health benefits of tea intake among Americans are inconclusive. Objective: To evaluate the association between tea consumption and all-causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer mortality in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal study (ACLS). Methods: 11808 participants (20-82 years) initially free of CVD and cancers enrolled in the ACLS and were followed for mortality. Participants provided baseline self-report of tea consumption (cups/day). During a median follow-up of 16 years, 842 participants died. Of others, 250 died from CVD, and 345 died from cancer, respectively. A Cox proportional hazard model was used to produce hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Results: Compared with participants consuming no tea, tea drinkers had a survival advantage ( Log-2 = 10.2, df = 3, P = 0.017); however, the multivariate hazard ratios (HRs) of all-cause mortality for those drinking 1–7, 8–14, and >14 cups/week were 0.95 (95% CI, 0.81–1.12), 1.00 (95% CI, 0.82–1.22), and 0.98 (95% CI, 0.76–1.25), respectively (P for linear trend = 0.83). The multivariate HR were 1.16 (95% CI, 0.86–1.56), 1.22 (95% CI, 0.85–1.76), and 0.94 (95% CI, 0.56–1.54) for CVD mortality (P for linear trend = 0.47), and 0.97 (95% CI, 0.75–1.25), 0.85 (95% CI, 0.60–1.16), and 0.94 (95% CI, 0.64–1.38) for cancer mortality (P for trend = 0.62). Conclusions: There were week or null relationships between tea consumption and mortality due to all-cause, CVD disease or cancer were observed in ACLS. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: The lack of health insurance reduces access to care and often results in poorer health outcomes. The present study simultaneously assessed the effects of health insurance on cancer and chronic disease mortality, as well as the inter-relationships with diet, obesity, smoking, and inflammatory biomarkers. We hypothesized that public/no insurance versus private insurance would result in increased cancer/chronic disease mortality due to the increased prevalence of inflammation-related lifestyle factors in the underinsured population.Methods: Data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey participants (NHANES III;1988-1994) were prospectively examined to assess the effects of public/no insurance versus private insurance and inflammation-related lifestyle factors on mortality risk from cancer, all causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes. Cox proportional hazards regression was performed to assess these relationships.Results: Multivariate regression analyses revealed substantially greater risks of mortality ranging from 35% to 245% for public/no insurance versus private insurance for cancer (HR=1.35; 95% CI=1.09,1.66), all causes (HR=1.54; 95% CI=1.39,1.70), CVD (HR=1.62; 95% CI=1.38,1.90) and diabetes (HR=2.45; 95% CI=1.45,4.14). Elevated CRP, smoking, reduced diet quality and higher BMI were more prevalent in those with public insurance, and were also associated with increased risks of cancer/chronic disease mortality.Discussion: Insurance status was strongly associated with cancer/chronic disease mortality after adjusting for lifestyle factors. The results suggest that inadequate health insurance coverage results in a substantially greater need for preventive strategies that focus on tobacco control, obesity, and improved dietary quality. These efforts should be incorporated into comprehensive insurance coverage programs for all Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]