Tobacco use is responsible for most preventable deaths and diseases in North Carolina and the country. This is why UNC-Chapel Hill researchers point to tobacco control as a means to reduce health care costs in the current issue of the North Carolina Medical Journal.
The North Carolina Child Health Report Card, issued annually by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) and NC Child, tracks key indicators of child health and well-being in four areas: Healthy Births, Access to Care, Secure Homes and Neighborhoods, and Health Risk Factors. The report provides data on such health concerns and risk factors as asthma, teen births, infant mortality, poverty, and child deaths.
In 2007, Susan G. Komen for the Cure released a report listing Edgecombe County, North Carolina as having one of the highest breast cancer incidence and mortality rates in the nation. The report cited an incidence rate of 185.3 per 100,000 population based on a 2003 statistic, which was an all-time high for Edgecombe County.