Mississippi, Alabama and Washington are the top three states with the highest death rates for people living with Alzheimer’s disease.
That’s according to U.S. News & World Report, which combed through publicly available data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that tracked the causes of death among people in 2022. Alzheimer’s, which most commonly causes dementia, was linked to 120,000 deaths, a 7% decline from 2021.
For every 100,000 deaths that occurred in 2022, about 28.9 were from Alzheimer’s. The disease is the sixth leading cause of death for adults aged 65 and up.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, about 6.9 million people age 65 and older in the U.S. live with Alzheimer’s in 2024. By 2050, that number could grow to almost 13 million.
According to U.S. News & World Report, the 10 states with the highest rates of Alzheimer’s deaths in the country are:
1: Mississippi, 1,679 deaths, with a rate of 48.5 per 100,000 deaths
2: Alabama, 2,655 deaths, with a rate of 42.2 per 100,000 deaths
3: Washington, 3,695 deaths, with a rate of 41.6 per 100,000 deaths
4: Arkansas, 1,577 deaths, with a rate of 41 per 100,000 deaths
5: Louisiana, 2,094 deaths, with a rate of 40 per 100,000 deaths
6: Utah, 1,057 deaths, with a rate of 39.8 per 100,000 deaths
7: Idaho, 848 deaths, with a rate of 39.5 per 100,000 deaths
8: Georgia, 4,219 deaths, with a rate of 39.3 per 100,000 deaths
9: Texas, 10,427 deaths, with a rate of 38.8 per 100,000 deaths
10: California, 17,363 deaths, with a rate of 37.5 per 100,000 deaths
With the number of Alzheimer’s cases anticipated to drastically increase in the coming years, the industry is going to need to hire an additional 1 million care workers by 2031 in order to keep up with the demand.
Primary care physicians that are caring for individuals with dementia have added there are not enough dementia care specialists in their communities, creating “dementia neurology deserts.” In the case of 20 states with these “deserts,” there are projected to be fewer than 10 neurologists per 10,000 people with dementia in 2025.
Alongside an increase in hiring, care workers have noted they need additional training, with three-fourths of dementia caregivers hadn’t received any formal training in dementia care navigation, and those that did got a median of 30 hours of formal training.
