The Surprising Cause of Death in California and Why It Matters

Dying of cancer, heart attack or stroke, while sad, it's at least not surprising. But dying from viral hepatitis? Well, that's a little unexpected, but maybe Californians should pay a little attention to it.

According to HealthGrove, a medical news site, dying from viral hepatitis is over-indexed in California. That means it is significantly more common here than the rest of the country.

Each year, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention compiles a list of deaths and related conditions to find the leading causes of death. Using the data from 2014, HealthGrove was able to suss out the cause of death that was over-indexed for each state.

For California, that's viral hepatitis. There are 3.1 deaths per 100,000 in the state from hepatitis, compared to 2 deaths per 100,000 for the country.

This is important, HealthGrove says, because looking only at the national trend, important regional fluctuations can be missed -- and that can have deadly consequences.

Here are some of the trends at the state level the site found. In the South, assault is the most over-indexed while in the mountain region states, self-harm, or suicide was the most over-indexed. As for the West Coast, it's hepatitis.

So, the next time you're at the doctor for a check up, maybe ask her to look a little closer at hepatitis.