The leading causes of death for Americans aged 85 or more years were heart disease (28.6%), cancer (11.7) and Alzheimer’s disease (9.1%) in 2018, according to new data released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The report includes differences in the rankings by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin.
Other leading causes of death for those aged 85 or more years, according to the CDC, included stroke (7.3%), chronic lower respiratory diseases (5.1%), influenza and pneumonia (2.8%), unintentional injuries (2.7%), diabetes or kidney disease (1.9% each) and hypertension (1.7%).
“Literally, the rankings denote the most frequently occurring causes of death among those causes eligible to be ranked. Rankings do not illustrate cause-specific mortality risk as depicted by mortality rates,” the report noted. “The rank of a specific cause (i.e., its mortality burden relative to other causes) may decline over time even if its mortality rate has not changed, or its rank may remain the same over time even if its mortality rate is declining.”
