Health Statistics and Populations

Understanding statistics, tables, and charts offer useful insights to understand complex health problems, identifying the population at risk, developing adequate treatments, and promoting effective prevention strategies. One of the most complex health problems in the United States relates to the vast field of heart diseases, where the primary threat is represented by coronary heart disease (CHD) and angina. Analysis of the statistics and monitoring of the population at risk have helped the research attain significant achievements, and the incidence of CHD and angina has decreased over the last decades remarkably.

However, heart disease remains one of the major cause of death in the US, killing almost 400,000 people every year. Statistics show that CHD affects men more than women, and that white population is more at risk than Afro-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans (Benjamin et al., 2017). This paper will analyze the population of Florida from the perspective of the incidence of CHD and angina. Data have significance in evaluating health care outcomes in a multicultural society where Hispanic whites constitute the majority of the population.

Data, Search and Directions	Findings
Population of interest.	The population of interest is made from men and women over 18 years of age with no special condition, living in areas with different levels of urbanization, and belonging to different races and social classes. The search aims at creating a mapping of the population of Florida, highlighting groups at risks and their distribution across the State. Heart-related diseases are the first cause of death in Florida, with 150.8 cases every 100,000 inhabitants (County Health Profile, 2018). The findings show data that are aligned with the national trend and indicate that the risk of CHD and angina increases with age. Smoking tobacco, obesity, high blood cholesterol, and physical inactivity are among the most significant causes of heart diseases.
Sources, organizations, and agencies.	Several governmental and non-governmental agencies monitor heart-related diseases. The American Heart Association (AHA) promotes campaigns aimed at improving the health status of the US, spreading knowledge about cardiovascular wellness. AHA also provides a yearly rapport containing detailed information to address the leading causes of heart diseases. The American Public Health Association and America’s Health Rankings cooperate to create a state by state analysis of the health of the nation. The Florida Department of Health offers many charts, tables, and statistics.
Statistics and information on risk factors.	The category most at risk consists of the population over 65 years of age, with a percentage of 10,9% people hit by heart disease. The national data are slightly larger, showing an 11,2% percentage. Within this percentage, men are more likely to develop heart disease compared to women, 5,8% and 3,7% respectively. The white population is most at risk, 5,6%, while Blacks and Hispanics have a decidedly lower incidence, 3,3% and 3,6% (Annual Report. Heart Disease in Florida 2018, 2018 ). These data highlight a discrepancy with the national trend, where the incidence of heart diseases in the Black population is more significant and comparable with the disease rate within White people (Benjamin et al., 2017). Other data underline the influence of secondary factors on the incidence of heart diseases, including education level, urbanicity, and income. High wages and educational level correspond to fewer chances of developing heart conditions (Annual Report. Heart Disease in Florida 2018, 2018 ). Quite surprisingly, heart diseases affect 9,3% population living in the countryside, while in urban areas the percentage decreases to 6,2%. In the rest of the US, the ratio of heart diseases in rural country settings is decidedly lower, with a value of 7,6%.
Interpreting the findings.	The trend of heart-related diseases among the population of Florida is aligned with the rest of the United States, where a significant reduction of the mortality rate has been witnessed over the past decades (Wilmot, O’Flaherty, Capewell, Ford, & Vaccarino, 2015). However, the decrease seems to affect white and black populations, while the percentage of heart diseases among Hispanic-Latino people has remained substantially unaltered. The evidence might be related to the difficulty among Hispanics at having access to quality health care (Ortega, Rodriguez, & Bustamante, 2015). Latinos have the lowest rates of health insurance coverage, and the continually increasing of the population suggests that different approaches to health care delivering should be planned.

Though great efforts have been made to reduce the incidence of heart-related diseases, CHD and angina are still among the most significant causes of death in the United States. Data and statistics have displayed a substantial alignment of Florida with the national trend. Aged people and men among white and black ethnic groups remain the categories most at risk, but the mortality rates due to heart-related diseases have decreased over the last decades. However, the decreasing does not affect the Latino-Hispanic population, confirming a documented lack of quality health care delivering among this ethnicity. Considering that Latinos communities are increasing in the US, addressing what is becoming a big demographic change should become a priority.

References

Annual Report. Heart Disease in Florida 2018. (2018). Web.

Benjamin, E. J., Blaha, M. J., Chiuve, S. E., Cushman, M., Das, S. R., Deo, R.,… Muntner, P. (2017). Heart disease and stroke statistics-2017 update: A report from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 135(10), 146-603. Web.

County Health Profile. (2018). Web.

Ortega, A. N., Rodriguez, H. P. & Bustamante, A. V. (2015). Policy dilemmas in Latino health care and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Annual Review of Public Health, 36, 525-544. Web.

Wilmot, K. A., O’Flaherty, M., Capewell, S., Ford E. S., & Vaccarino, V. (2015) Coronary heart disease Mortality declines in the United States from 1979 through 2011. Evidence for stagnation in young adults, especially women. Circulation, 132(10), 997-1002. Web.