Suburban Cook County Mortality Statistics by Demographics

Mortality counts below 5 and rates below 20 are masked with an asterisk (*) to protect confidentiality. This dataset from the Cook County Department of Public Health tracks selected causes of death across suburban Cook County, Illinois, excluding Chicago. It includes demographic breakdowns by gender, race/ethnicity, and age group.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in specific causes of death by examining the `Year` and `Section` columns.
• Compare mortality disparities across demographic groups using the `Race/Ethnicity`, `Gender`, and `Age Group` columns.
• Calculate and compare crude versus age-adjusted mortality rates using the `Crude Mortality Rate` and `Age-Adjusted Mortality Rate` columns for different `Place` values.
• Investigate the distribution of death causes within broader categories by joining the `Section` and `Sub Section` columns.

Strengths

• Includes both `Crude Mortality Rate` and `Age-Adjusted Mortality Rate` for standardized comparisons.
• Provides demographic breakdowns across `Gender`, `Race/Ethnicity`, and `Age Group`.

Limitations

• Small counts are suppressed (masked with *), limiting analysis for rare events or small populations.
• Some columns like mortality rates only contain data for certain `Age Group` values, creating incomplete records.
• Rows contain pre-aggregated totals (e.g., 'Aggregated Region') that can cause double-counting if not filtered during analysis.

Provenance

Source

Illinois Department of Public Health, curated by the Cook County Department of Public Health.

Collection Method

Administrative records from death certificates, aggregated and anonymized.

Time Range

2015 onward (data from 2000-2014 is in a separate archive).

Freshness

Data updated as of 2026-01-27, with historical data from 2000-2014 available in a separate linked dataset.

Geography

Suburban Cook County, Illinois, excluding the city of Chicago.