Map Shows States With the Highest Cancer Rates

Behind only heart disease, which is responsible for about one in every four American deaths, cancer is the country's biggest killer and a map shows that the prevalence of the disease varies significantly from state to state. The age-adjusted cancer rate in the U.S.—being the number of new cases per 100,000 individuals—is 440.5, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a division of the National Institutes of Health. The NCI said this would result in an estimated 2 million cases being diagnosed in 2024 alone, and cause around 611,720 deaths. According to Dr. Ahemdin Jemal, senior vice president of the Surveillance & Health Equity Science Department at the American Cancer Society, the main causes of cancer in the U.S. are: smoking, excess body weight, physical inactivity, alcohol consumption and infections. Drawing on the most recent state-level data from the Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and NCI, Newsweek mapped cancer rates across the U.S. Kentucky has the highest rate of cancer in the country, with 509.9 cases per 100,000 annually, well above the national average of 439.1. This is 12 cases more than the next state on the list, Iowa, which had rate of 498. According to a 2018 report originally published in the Southern Medical Journal, the prevalence of cancer in Kentucky could be attributed to the Appalachian region's socioeconomic status, limited access to healthcare, geographic isolation and lower rates of "health literacy." Kentucky's cancer rates were also linked to higher rates of cancer-causing behavior such as smoking, itself caused by relatively low state-level spending on tobacco prevention programs. Dr. Ahmedin Jemal of the American Cancer Society told Newsweek that Kentucky's high rates of cancer were due to it being "among the states with the highest smoking prevalence, the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. and in each state."

In line with the wider trend—observed both nation- and worldwide—Kentucky men are far more susceptible to the disease than their female counterparts. The cancer rate for Kentucky men is 562.6 per 100,000 individuals, compared to 475.3 for women. According to a 2022 study conducted by Sarah Jackson of the NCI, "men had an increased risk of most cancers even after adjusting for a wide range of risk behaviors and carcinogenic exposures." Jackson said the findings suggested that "there are differences in cancer incidence that are not explained by environmental exposures alone," and that biological differences between the genders—physiological, immunological and genetic—play a significant role in the cancer susceptibility of men versus women. After Kentucky and Iowa, the other states with the highest cancer rates are West Virginia (496.7), Connecticut (495.6) and Maine (484.2). On the other end of the scale is New Mexico, with only 364 new diagnoses per 100,000 residents. Low levels of industrial pollution, as well as lifestyle and genetic differences among its population, could contribute to New Mexico's relatively low cancer rate. However, a 2020 study found that cancers in New Mexico were diagnosed at a lower rate than elsewhere in the country, itself caused by less access to healthcare and sparse insurance cover in the state relative to others. Behind New Mexico, the other states with low rates of cancer are Arizona (367.8), Nevada (377.2), Colorado (381.1) and Oregon (386.7). This reveals a slight pattern of high prevalence in the Southeast, whereas many states in the Southwest have relatively low cancer rates. Jemal said that this was largely due to the regions' differing rates of smoking and obesity, as well as demographic differences, and the differing rates of cancer suffered by each ethnicity. "States in the Southeast have the highest [rates of] cigarette smoking and obesity, the two leading causes of cancer death rates," he told Newsweek. "In addition, states in the Southeast have a higher percentage of Black people, who are known to have the highest burden of cancer among racial and ethnic groups." Lisa Richardson, MD, MPH, director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at the CDC, told Newsweek that the disparities in cancer rates across the country can be partly explained by "differences in known risk factors," such as smoking. Richardson also remarked on the lower rates of cancer in the Southwest, pointing to the "strong tobacco control programs" enacted by California, as well as the lower prevalence of obesity and physical activity in states such as Colorado. She said that advances in cancer research have led to "great improvements" in the prevention, detection and treatment of cancer, as reflected by the decline in overall cancer mortality rates in the U.S. Do you have a story we should be covering? Do you have any questions about this article? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com. Update 11/14/24, 4:26 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include comments from Lisa Richardson of the CDC.