PlainHealth

Top 10 US States by Diabetes Mortality Rate

CDC WONDER state-level diabetes (ICD-10 E10-E14) mortality, age-adjusted per 100,000. Rendered server-side from the live mortality table.

Research period:

Compiled by PlainHealth Editorial on 2026-05-16

Research question

Which US states record the highest age-adjusted diabetes death rates per 100,000 population?

Methodology

This ranking reflects the data currently in our database, sourced from the agency referenced in the citation below and updated automatically as new filings are processed.

Coverage and exclusions: the source agency occasionally suppresses values for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality control, and suppressed rows are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero. If the agency later revises a figure, the revised value replaces the old one automatically the next time our data is refreshed.

Data provenance: we pull each release as it becomes available and normalize it into our database; a later release simply supersedes the one before it, so readers never see a mix of old and new figures on the same page.

Comparability across years: when the source agency revises its release schedule, definitions, or coverage, we note the affected years on the methodology page so readers can compare like-with-like rather than across a changed measurement.

Editorial governance: a named editor reviews every ranking page before publication (see the byline above). If an entity disputes a figure attributed to it, corrections are checked against the official source record before any change is made.

Every number on this page can be traced back to its source by following the entity links and the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the original public source.

See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.

Top 10 US States by Diabetes Mortality Rate

Live data: reflects the current dataset

1. West Virginia342. Mississippi33.33. Arkansas32.44. Oklahoma30.65. Kentucky27.76. Indiana26.67. New Mexico26.58. Ohio25.29. Kansas25.210. Nebraska25

The ranked top 10

Every row below reflects the current 10-record dataset. Reload the page after new data is processed to see the latest values.

# State Deaths Age-adjusted rate /100k Year
1 West Virginia 864 34 2017
2 Mississippi 1,164 33.3 2017
3 Arkansas 1,180 32.4 2017
4 Oklahoma 1,398 30.6 2017
5 Kentucky 1,474 27.7 2017
6 Indiana 2,096 26.6 2017
7 New Mexico 673 26.5 2017
8 Ohio 3,740 25.2 2017
9 Kansas 874 25.2 2017
10 Nebraska 575 25 2017

Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC WONDER Multiple Cause of Death. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC WONDER Multiple Cause of Death. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed.

Findings

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is West Virginia, with a value of 34 on the Age-adjusted rate /100k column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the source agency publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record (34) and the 10th-ranked record (25) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, specifically the CDC WONDER Multiple Cause of Death. PlainHealth ingests the source vintage published by the agency and keeps this page current, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published dataset is reflected here within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the steps applied to prepare the data.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.

What this analysis cannot tell us

ICD-10 E10-E14 covers diabetes mellitus as the underlying cause of death. Because diabetes frequently contributes to deaths formally coded to heart disease or kidney disease, underlying-cause counts understate its full burden. State variation reflects obesity prevalence, diet, physical-activity levels, access to care, and demographic composition; the ranking does not measure the quality of a state's diabetes care. Age-adjustment uses the year-2000 US standard population. Small-population states with low annual death counts can show higher year-to-year variance. This page describes mortality data and does not provide medical advice, clinical decisions should be made with a qualified health-care professional.

Secondary cut from the same source

The 10 states with the lowest age-adjusted rate, for contrast

1. Delaware19.12. Rhode Island18.83. Nevada18.34. Wyoming18.15. Colorado17.26. New Jersey16.97. New York16.88. Hawaii15.99. Massachusetts15.110. Connecticut14.5

Sources