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Which states have experienced the most death per population?

Question: Yesterday you showed the states with the highest/lowest cases per population.  What about deaths per population?  Are they the same states? 

Answer: CDC’s COVID Data Tracker also shows deaths per 100,000 population by state and territory (Figure 1).  I’ve listed below the five states with highest and lowest deaths per population.  As you can see, four of the five states with the lowest number of deaths/population are also among yesterday’s list of states with the lowest number of cases/population. Makes sense: fewer cases= fewer deaths. Conversely, among states with the highest number of deaths per population, only one of the five (Rhode Island) also appeared in yesterday’s list of states with the highest number of cases/population.  This apparent mismatch could be due to a number of factors influencing risk of death– age, race, comorbidities, health systems, local policies, variant type, and more.  My mind immediately leapt to population age distribution. 

COVID mortality increases dramatically by age.  Because age structure varies by state (e.g. some states have much younger populations than others), we’d expect states with older populations to be more likely to experience more deaths/population.  This is why it would be beneficial to adjust for age when comparing across states (for more on age-adjustment, see Q&A of 11/24).  For example, I’d hypothesize that Alaska appears on the lowest number of deaths/population list because it has the one of the youngest populations in the country (second only to Utah, which ranks 6th in the lowest deaths list).  Of course, age composition doesn’t account for all of the variation.  Maine has the oldest population age structure with ~21% of the population age 65+ and median age of 45, yet it has experienced one of the lowest proportions of deaths/population of all the states. 

Highest number of deaths per 100,000

  1. New Jersey (266 deaths / 100,000)
  2. Rhode Island (241 deaths / 100,000)
  3. Massachusetts (236 deaths / 100,000)
  4. Mississippi (230 deaths / 100,000)
  5. Arizona (224 deaths / 100,000)

Lowest number of deaths per 100,000

  1. Hawaii (21 deaths / 100,000)
  2. Vermont (33 deaths / 100,000)
  3. Alaska (41 deaths / 100,000)
  4. Maine (53 deaths / 100,000)
  5. Oregon (54 deaths / 100,000)

Figure 1. Total COVID Deaths per 100,000 by State/Territory (from CDC)