Life is hard, but the burden of existence is possibly heaviest in Louisiana — where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDP) has determined the "most distinctive" cause of death to be syphilis, better known as one of the least fun STDs available for contraction. The other 49 states don't fare much better, with Alabama apparently racking up deaths via accidental discharge of firearms and Arizona knocking off citizens with intentional discharge.
The CDC thanklessly compiled these uniquely depressing statistics — publishing them in handy map form so you can always know the most distinctive cause of death, no matter where you happen to be.
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What's the process for determining the "most distinctive" cause of death in each state, you ask?
The Benchmark Reporter has your answer, curious ones:
In order to determine the most distinctive causes of death for each individual state, the researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initiated a list of 113 causes of death.
Then, the researchers began determining the estimate of death from each cause, for each state and divided this by the rate of death from that particular cause in the United States as a whole. This theory allowed the researchers to observe which of the states had higher rates of death from certain causes than the rest of the United States.
