Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Deaths by County, Ages 25+, New Mexico, 2019-2023

Why Is This Important?

COPD, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, is a chronic lung disease that makes it hard to breathe. It is a progressive disease, which means that the disease gets worse over time. The disease isn't passed from person to person, it is not contagious. COPD develops slowly. Symptoms often worsen over time and can limit the ability to do routine activities. Severe COPD may prevent people from doing even basic activities like walking, cooking, or taking care of themselves. COPD has no cure yet and doctors don't know how to reverse the damage to the airways and lungs. However, COPD is often preventable and treatable. Treatments and lifestyle changes can help those affected feel better, stay more active, and slow the progress of the disease. Early detection of COPD is key to successful treatment. Knowing the symptoms or exposures to risk factors (see below) may lead to early diagnosis of COPD. COPD was a major cause of disability; was the third leading cause of death in the United States in 2014. Death rates are declining nationally and in NM, declining from 43 per in 2008 to 37 per 100,000 age adjusted rate in 2019 nationally and 72 in 2008 to 66 100,000 age adjusted rate in 2020 in New Mexico,

Definition

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, is a chronic lung disease that makes it hard to breathe. For this definition, a COPD death has an underlying OR CONTRIBUTING cause of death with ICD-10 codes J40-J44.

Data Notes

Data Sources

• New Mexico Death Data: Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS), Epidemiology and Response Division, New Mexico Department of Health.
  (https://www.nmhealth.org/about/erd/bvrhs/vrp/)
• New Mexico Population Estimates: University of New Mexico, Geospatial and Population Studies (GPS) Program.
  (http://gps.unm.edu/)

How the Measure is Calculated

• Numerator:

  Number of deaths with COPD as underlying or contributing cause.

• Denominator:

  Estimated total number of New Mexico residents in a specified population over a specified time period (mid-year estimates).

Data Issues

• Death Certificate Data

  Death certificate information is submitted electronically by funeral directors, who obtain demographic information from an informant, a close family member of the decedent. The NMDOH Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS) does annual trainings for funeral directors and local registrars and the death certificate information goes through extensive scrutiny for completeness and consistency. The cause of death is certified by the decedent's physician or the physician that attended the death. Accidental and suspicious deaths are certified by the Office of the Medical Investigator. When death certificates are received the cause of death literals are keyed into software locally by the BVRHS, then shipped to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) where they are machine coded into ICD-10 cause-of-death codes. NCHS returns the ICD-10 codes to BVRHS where the death records are updated.

• New Mexico Population Estimates

  {{class RedText NOTE: On January 16, 2025, the NM-IBIS and NMTracking POPULATION ESTIMATES FOR YEARS **2010 THROUGH 2023** WERE REPLACED. Data from the 2020 decennial census were used to update the estimates. Rates calculated using the NM-IBIS and NMTracking web-based queries are affected. Any rates that use population denominators that were calculated after January 16, 2025 will be different from those calculated prior to that date. We apologize for the inconvenience.}} All population estimates apply to July 1 of the selected year. These estimates are considered the most accurate estimates for the state of New Mexico and should match those found on the University of New Mexico [https://gps.unm.edu/pop/population-estimates.html Geospatial and Population Studies website]. Estimates include decimal fractions. Census tract population estimates were summed to produce County estimates. Population estimate totals may vary slightly due to rounding.

Health Topic Pages Related to: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Deaths

• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease