This map shows age-adjusted [1] coronary heart disease (CHD) death rates by county in New England. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and CHD is one of the most common types of heart disease. [2] At the national level, as of 2011–2013, the CHD death rate was 105.7 per 100,000 individuals. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion's Healthy People initiative strives for a national CHD death rate of 100.8 by 2020. [3]

Massachusetts is the only state in the region where all counties have already met the Healthy People 2020 target rate of 100.8, and most county CHD death rates within New England are still lower than the national rate.

There are 16 counties within the region where county-level CHD death rates exceed the nation's CHD death rate. Most of these counties experience poverty rates greater than 10 percent.Franklin County, Vermont, and Washington County, Maine, have the highest CHD death rates in New England, recording 134 deaths per 100,000 individuals, and the poverty rate in these countiesis 17.1 percent and 16.8 percent, respectively.

Endnotes

1. Age adjustment is used to compare two or more populations, or in this case populations across counties. Age adjustment eliminates differences that are a direct result of age. See http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/statnt/statnt20.pdf for more details.
2. "Heart Disease Facts," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, August 10, 2015, http://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm.
3. See "About Healthy People," http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/About-Healthy-People.

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