Infographic: Global cancer death rates declining or holding steady

The overall global trends on cancer mortality … tells a story which at first glance can seem conflicting.

The total number of deaths from cancer is increasing. This is predominantly a result of aging (and growing) populations. Once we correct the number of deaths for population size, we see that cancer death rates have approximately flatlined; then when further corrected for age we see that globally, death rates are falling. This represents progress, although very slow.

Death rates have the limitation of being unable to account for the burden of disease from illness or disability – they therefore capture only mortality, and not morbidity. Another metric used to measure disease burden is Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost. DALYs are used to measure total burden of disease – both from years of life lost and years lived with a disability. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life.

Related on the SLP

Infographic: 5-year US cancer survival rates are on the rise Infographic: US cancer death rates have been dropping steadily after many peaked in the early 1990s

Ahead of the midterms, Meta has paid at least 29 anti-LGBTQ accounts for their posts

Viewpoint: RFK Jr.’s stacked FDA advisory council endorses multicancer screening test from ethically- questionable company that would increase false positives and waste billions of dollars

Viewpoint: The price Americans pay for science denialism

Read full, original post: Cancer