The Health of the Delta Region: A Story of Increasing Disparities

Abstract

The Delta region of the U.S. has substantial disparities in health outcomes. For four of the leading causes of death in the United States (cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, and injury) residents of the Delta region are between 1.16 (cancer) and 1.45 (injury) times as likely to die as residents of the United States in general. Delta region residents are also more likely to have higher BMI, higher blood pressure, more diabetes, and are more likely to smoke. From 1968 to 1982, mortality rates in the Delta region and in the U.S. fell rapidly and in parallel. Beginning in the 1980s, these two rates continued to decline but began to diverge, with less improvement in the Delta region than in the United States in general. From 1968 to 1982, mortality disparities in the Delta were about 90 excess deaths per 100,000. By 2004, mortality disparities in the Delta had doubled to about 187 excess deaths per 100,000. Put differently, the Delta region had approximately 18,000 excess deaths in 2004, deaths that would not have occurred had the region achieved the average rate of mortality experienced by the remainder of the nation.