ABSTRACT
The decline of the ischemic heart disease pandemic after 1970 in the United States reduced age adjusted mortality rates in every state for both sex. Decreases also occurred in the average state age adjusted total mortality rates excluding ischemic heart disease from 1970 to 1990, but the variations in mortality rates among the states increased or remained the same. Variations in ischemic heart disease mortality rates among the states narrowed because of the decline of the national pandemic. The consistency of the state variations in mortality rates from all other causes was due to long term conditions in the individual states, not to national factors. State ischemic heart disease mortality rates during the decline of the pandemic continued to have little relationship to state mortality rates from all other causes. The decrease in ischemic heart disease mortality rates had the same effect on men and women in each state because their mortality rates corresponded very closely throughout the period.
