One interpretation is we now live to an age where heart disease and cancer naturally kill us off. What was the leading cause of death of 60 to 70 year old's in 1900?
School shootings: 1900: 0 2014: XXX? We're on pace for triple digit school shootings this year in the USA
1900 is not really a good comparison, because it was pre-modern age. Most of the US didn't even have phones or electricity until the 1920s economic "boom" when the country truly modernized. And of course scant access to hospitals where children could get cured of infectious diseases. I wonder how 1960 versus 2010 would compare? I suspect most of those diseases would be equal, with heart disease also in a downward trend, but the cancer rates have definitely increased since we eat processed foods filled with the Corporate-run FDA's "safe" chemicals.
Some of this information may be more effectively or completely acquired today versus 50-100 years ago. Our ability to identify and process data is far superior these days. So one has to wonder how accurate the comparisons might be.
Nice to see that "Death" is still the leading cause of "Not Being Alive". Doesn't really surprise me that in over a hundred years of technological and medical advancement the causes of Death have changed significantly.
I have to believe that nagging to death (by one's wife) has remained fairly consistent over the decades.
xpcman nailed one of the methodologic problems: the data is not normalized for age. The other major problem has to do with classification. Consider a person with Cancer who dies from Pneumonia. The knowledge that Cancer is present has improved quite a bit in 100 years, and the administrative understanding that the Pneumonia is a complication of Cancer relatively recent. How about Pneumonia in a smoker ? Anyone care to guess how that is coded nowadays ?
