Lauren Cheney

Lauren Cheney

3/27/13

                        Clare Torres, who is the  Senior Health  Data Analyst at the Arizona Department of Health Services explained five different public health trends within the community of  Gilbert, Arizona.

                        One trend that is fairly common in the southern states, is excessive heat.  Excessive natural heat can cause death and dehydration. We know that from 1992-2009, 1,485 deaths were from exposure to heat due to weather conditions in Arizona. 43.5 percent of the total of these deaths were Arizona residents. Older adults  or older have been at the highest risk for heatstroke or sunstroke among Arizona residents.

Another trend is cancer. Cancer has been the number one cause of death between Arizona residents for ages 0-84. In people 85 and older that heart disease continues to be the number one killer among Arizona residents. In 2008, people 85 and older were 15.3 percent of all deaths from cancer, but the 3.6.9 percent were accounted from heart disease. In 1990-2008, the number of deaths that resulted from cancer has increased 2.3 times among Arizonians.

One interesting trend was the trend of obesity and income in Arizona in the year 2007. Arizona residents with incomes $15,000- 24,999 were most likely to be obese. Those earning more than $50,000 were least likely to be obese. Obesity in Arizona decreased with incomes less than $15,000, but then it increased for the rest of the income groups. Obesity was also more common in non-white than whites.

From 1993-2007, adolescents and young adults were among the 2^nd group with the 2^nd highest death rate from motor vehicle accidents. The elderly older than age 85 had the highest mortality rate among all the age groups.  Among these years, there wasn’t a specific difference of mortality rate between ethnic groups, such as Blacks and Asians. Generally, as age increase, so does the mortality rate. The increase in mortality rate, was not as steep in females, than in males.

Injuries cause the highest rate of deaths among Arizonans ages 1 to 5 and 9 to 33. The highest among ethnic groups mortality rates for all injury deaths of children 1-14 years old in 2000 were those of American Indians. The injury death rates for adolescents 15-19 years old in 2000 were also higher among American Indians, than  Blacks, Hispanics and White nonHispanics. The highest mortality rates among ethnic groups for all injuries combined in both 1990 and 2000 were  American Indian residents of the State.In 2000, the injury mortality rate among American Indians was 2.4 times higher than the rate for Hispanics and 4.2 times as high as the injury death rate of Asians.