Treatin Cancer as Public Health Problem

摘要

As a result of the growth and aging of the U.S. population, more Americans died of cancer in 1999 than in any previous year. Yet mere numbers do not by any means reflect the true state of our war against cancer. I have long argued that cancer statistics can be quite misleading and that only an age-adjusted mortality rate―one that takes into account the growth and aging of the population―allows for fair comparisons between different populations and different years. According to National Cancer Institute data that have been age-adjusted to reflect the composition of the U.S. population in 2000, mortality rates in the United States peaked in 1991. They then declined, albeit at less than 1 percent per year, throughout the 1990s. (The most recent available data are from 1999.)