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Between 1980 and 2014, the number of Americans dying from cardiovascular disease was cut in half. Though cardiovascular disease — an umbrella term for conditions that affect the heart and circulatory system, commonly known as heart disease — remains the most common cause of death in the U.S. by a wide margin, the drop in deaths shows significant progress. This nationwide trend, however, obscures the fact that not every region has made such headway.
These geographic trends also vary from disease to disease within the overarching category of cardiovascular disease. The Southeast, for instance, has higher rates of rheumatic heart disease, hypertensive heart disease and hemorrhagic stroke.
Read more about heart disease by Ella Koeze at FiveThirtyEight