Mortality Rate in Northeast Texas is one of the Highest in the Nation

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Northeast Texas has an astoundingly high mortality rate as people are dying at far greater rates than the rest of Texas and even the rest of the country, Texas Monthly reports. State health data was used by the University of Texas Health System and showed alarming results.

The mortality rate in the area has a 33% higher death rate from heart disease, a 35% higher death rate from lung cancer, and a 40% higher rate of suicide than the rest of the state. Texas (38.16 Latino population) is currently struggling with a well-documented problems of infant mortality; however, the problem is even direr in Northeast Texas where 6.3 babies die every 1,000 births, compared to 5.8 across the Lone Star State.

“Northeast Texas also is comparably poorer and less educated than Texas as a whole, which could be a factor,” said the study’s author, Dr. David Lakey in a blog for The Huffington Post. “However, smoking is believed to be the key causal factor.”

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It was uncovered that 23.4% of Northeast Texas adults regularly smoke cigarettes; this is a figure that is 10% higher than the rest of the state. Disease such as cancer and heart disease are directly related to cigarette smoking. Other health risk factors in that area of the state include high instances of obesity, access to healthcare, and physical fitness were on par with the rest of the state’s averages.

The report uncovered that, in 2014, the mortality rates for males were 18% higher in the region and 20% higher for females than anywhere else in the state. For Latinos, however, the mortality rates were lower than in the rest of the state.

Read the report here.

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