How do I compare the rates of stroke and heart disease for two racial groups?
Follow the instructions for viewing two maps in the answer to the question: “How do I view two maps at a time?” Then select either heart disease or stroke for two different racial or ethnic groups. Looking at the maps side by side allows you to see disease rates for the same location (county, state, or region) and whether one location has generally high, medium, or low rates for two racial or ethnic groups. Remember that the maps for two racial groups are not directly comparable, since quintile assignment (and map color) are based on the independent distributions of county rates for each racial or ethnic group. A high quintile assignment for one group and a high quintile assignment for another group does not mean that both groups suffer similar numbers of deaths. For example, because death rates are considerably higher for blacks than for other groups, it is common to find that the range of death rates for the lowest quintile for blacks is comparable with the highest quintile for white
