How Unusual Is Your State? CDC Death Map Can Reveal

That cancer and heart disease remain top killers is well known but did you that know that unusual causes of death happen in every state more frequently than expected? A new map lists such causes in every state.

The death count for every state from 2001 through 2010 was provided by CDC's Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER). Researchers \put together the map based on 113 listed causes of death.

Map shows one distinctive cause of death for every state. While some of the causes were predictable others were surprises. For instance researchers found that septicaemia in New Jersey as largest distinct cause, while it was death by legal intervention in the three western states.

"Some of the findings make intuitive sense, influenza in some northern states, pneumoconioses in coal-mining states, air and water accidents in Alaska and Idaho," researchers wrote.

Other distinct causes of death include syphilis in Louisiana, hyperplasia of the prostate in California, tuberculosis in Texas and accidental discharge of firearms in Alabama and Tennessee, and meningococcal infection in Missouri.

"This map has been a robust conversation starter among those who have seen it before publication, generating hypotheses and inviting further exploration of the underlying data set, something that an equivalent tabular representation does not accomplish as well," the map's makers said.