Evaluating Trends in Place of Death and Cause of Death in Minnesota from 2013—2018
Between 2013 and 2018 over 240,000 adults died in the state of Minnesota. Each death is associated with a Cause of Death (COD) and a Place of Death (POD). The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) collects data in all of these categories. With assistance from the University of Minnesota’s Biostatistical Design and Analysis Center (BDAC) and the MDH, statistical analysis of the COD and POD data was carried out. The goal of this research was to identify trends in both COD and POD to establish relationships between these trends, age, and gender over the six year period. In addition to the trends, gender disparities in individual CODs and PODs were examined alongside demographic data from the Rajanayagam project. After analyzing the data, it was concluded that two CODs and one POD showed significant and identifiable trends. These trends revealed that the percentage of individuals dying from cancer has been decreasing while the percentage of individuals dying from Alzheimer’s has been increasing with the percentage of women dying from Alzheimer’s increasing rapidly. The percentage of individuals dying in hospice facilities also increased over the six year period. A deeper dive into this data with a larger time span would allow for a more robust analysis of the data with respect to time. This would facilitate the recognition and discovery of more trends and disparities.