Why are there no maps of death rates for the most recent years?
It takes time (usually a year or two) for death certificate data to make its way through several levels of government agencies, beginning at the county courthouse and ending at CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, where the National Vital Statistics Database is maintained. Therefore, there is a lag of 2 to 3 years before data are published and available for epidemiological studies. Adding further to the delay is the need to calculate the disease rates of counties for a span of years to insure reliability.
