What is the relationship between economic factors and rates of heart disease in the New York metropolitan area? It is well known that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States of America. In 2010 alone, cardiovascular disease caused the death of 597,689 Americans, over 20,000 more people than the second leading cause of death, cancer (Leading Causes). It is also widely believed that heart disease primarily kills those in the lower socioeconomic strata. So how do we view the New York City metropolitan area? This is a region where some of the wealthiest counties, not just in the metro area but in the entire country, suffer from some of the highest rates of deadly heart disease. While the poorer urban counties that make up New York City generally have the highest rates of fatal heart disease in metropolitan areas, wealthier, more middle-class counties approach and sometimes exceed these rates. According to a New York Times article, much of the metropolitan area has heart disease rates that meet or exceed those of poor rural areas, places traditionally considered to be at higher risk for heart disease. Some speculate that these high rates are caused by the stress of living in a large metropolitan area, or even high levels of income inequality (Fessenden). This too is a long-standing issue. From the same NY Times article, New York State has had one of the highest rates of heart disease deaths in the country for many years. In 1994, a group of epidemiologists at the State University at Albany set out to see whether it was a consequence of poor health in New York City and concluded that it was not: suburban areas, where the incidence of disease was lower than in the city, had still worse mortality rates than in other 42...... middle of paper ......tion. Retrieved from http://nccd.cdc.gov/dhdspatlas/ I used this interactive atlas to find the heart disease death rate for each county in the New York metro. Main causes of death. (2013). Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htmThis web page provides statistics on the leading causes of death in America in 2010. Metropolitan areas of the United States by cost of living. (2012). Pew Foundation. Retrieved from http://pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/MSAsbylivingcosts.pdfThis is a ranking of all metropolitan areas in the United States by cost of living. Shows that the New York Metro has the highest cost of living in the country.US Census Bureau. (2010). Quick facts about state and county. Retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov. I used the US Census to compile the median household income for each county in the New York metropolitan area.