Health Event Counts
The total number of health events, or the
Number of Deaths for Four Leading Causes by Cause and Sex, New Jersey, 2005
Underlying Cause of Death | Men | Women | Total |
---|---|---|---|
Heart disease | 9,590 | 10,888 | 20,478 |
Cancer | 8,386 | 8,650 | 17,036 |
Stroke | 1,409 | 2,166 | 3,575 |
Chronic lower respiratory diseases | 1,363 | 1,762 | 3,125 |
Counts of health events are useful, but have limitations for those who need to compare populations of unequal size, for instance, a subpopulation versus an overall state population. This is why the Dataset Query Builder pages do not have maps as a choice when the measure is Count. Knowing the population sizes can help to interpret counts, but computing a rate will allow direct comparison between populations of unequal size that are otherwise similar (e.g., similar age composition, similar culturally).