{"id":1214,"date":"2021-03-11T09:01:41","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T14:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1214"},"modified":"2021-03-11T09:01:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T14:01:41","slug":"which-states-have-experienced-the-most-death-per-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1214","title":{"rendered":"Which states have experienced the most death per population?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Question:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Yesterday you showed the states with the highest\/lowest cases per population.\u00a0 What about deaths per population?\u00a0 Are they the same states?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Answer:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covid.cdc.gov\/covid-data-tracker\/#cases_deathsper100k\">CDC&#8217;s COVID Data Tracker<\/a> also shows deaths per 100,000 population by state and territory (<strong>Figure 1<\/strong>).\u00a0 I&#8217;ve listed below the five states with highest and lowest deaths per population.\u00a0 As you can see, four of the five states with the lowest number of deaths\/population are also among <a href=\"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1211\">yesterday&#8217;s list<\/a> 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&#8217;s list of states with the highest number of cases\/population.\u00a0 This apparent mismatch could be due to a number of factors influencing risk of death&#8211; age, race, comorbidities, health systems, local policies, variant type, and more.\u00a0 My mind immediately leapt to population age distribution.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">COVID mortality increases dramatically by age.\u00a0 Because age structure varies by state\u00a0(e.g. some states have much younger populations than others), we&#8217;d expect states with older populations to be more likely to experience more deaths\/population.\u00a0 This is why it would be beneficial to adjust for age when comparing across states (for more on age-adjustment, see <a href=\"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=864\">Q&amp;A of 11\/24<\/a>).\u00a0 For example, I&#8217;d hypothesize that Alaska appears on the lowest number of deaths\/population list because it has the <a href=\"https:\/\/worldpopulationreview.com\/state-rankings\/youngest-states\">one of the youngest populations in the country<\/a>\u00a0(second only to Utah, which ranks 6th in the lowest deaths list).\u00a0 Of course, age composition doesn&#8217;t account for all of the variation.\u00a0 Maine has the oldest population age structure with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prb.org\/which-us-states-are-the-oldest\/\">~21% of the population age 65+<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/worldpopulationreview.com\/state-rankings\/youngest-states\">median age of 45<\/a>, yet it has experienced one of the lowest proportions of deaths\/population of all the states.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>Highest number of deaths per 100,000<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>New Jersey (266 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><li>Rhode Island (241 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><li>Massachusetts&nbsp;(236 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><li>Mississippi (230 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><li>Arizona (224 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>Lowest number of deaths per 100,000<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Hawaii (21 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><li>Vermont (33 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><li>Alaska (41 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><li>Maine (53 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><li>Oregon (54 deaths \/ 100,000)<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Figure 1.\u00a0Total COVID Deaths per 100,000 by State\/Territory\u00a0<\/strong>(from <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/covid.cdc.gov\/covid-data-tracker\/#cases_casesper100k\" target=\"_blank\">CDC<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"723\" height=\"664\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-6.png?resize=723%2C664&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-6.png?resize=1024%2C941&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-6.png?resize=300%2C276&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-6.png?resize=768%2C706&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-6.png?resize=1536%2C1412&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-6.png?w=1545&amp;ssl=1 1545w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-6.png?w=1446&amp;ssl=1 1446w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 723px) 100vw, 723px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question:\u00a0Yesterday you showed the states with the highest\/lowest cases per population.\u00a0 What about deaths per population?\u00a0 Are they the same states?\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0CDC&#8217;s COVID Data Tracker also shows deaths per 100,000 population by state and territory (Figure 1).\u00a0 I&#8217;ve listed below the five states with highest and lowest deaths per population.\u00a0 As you can see, four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47],"tags":[180],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-states","tag-age","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-6.png?fit=1545%2C1420&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1216,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions\/1216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}