The shift from heart disease to cancer as the leading cause of death in high-income countries: A social epidemiology perspective
Menée aux Etats-Unis à partir des données des registres des décès entre 2005 et 2015, cette étude observationnelle évalue les disparités socioéconomiques et ethniques dans les causes de décès et souligne l'évolution de la mortalité par cancer par rapport à la mortalité cardiovasculaire
A combination of increased prevention and improved medical treatment of cardiovascular disease (CVD) has allowed cancer to gradually replace heart disease as the leading cause of death in high-income countries (1). Although mortality from both diseases has decreased steadily in recent decades, CVD mortality has decreased more rapidly. A 2016 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that cancer will become the leading cause of death in the United States by 2020 (2), and this shift has already occurred in some European countries (1). These changes are part of what has been referred to as the fourth stage of the epidemiologic transition: the “age of delayed degenerative diseases.” This stage was initially identified to characterize the striking decreases in mortality from ischemic heart disease in the late 1970s. It has recently been proposed that it may also be accompanied by an increase in chronic inflammatory diseases, cancer, metabolic disease, and neurodegenerative disorders (3).
Annals of Internal Medicine , éditorial, 2017