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It is now a grim fact that the life expectancy of American women is stagnant, but the reason for this remains a mystery. A team of researchers has now come up with an important clue: Where women live matters just as much as who they are. In fact, in a study to be published this week in SSM Population Health, they found that many common demographic traits — whether a woman is rich, poor, unemployed, working, single or married — might not be as important as the state in which she lives. (Tavernise, 8/23)

Cancer has surpassed heart disease as the leading cause of death in California and 21 other states, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That total is in stark contrast to the situation at the start of this century, when only two states — Alaska and Minnesota — lost more people to cancer than heart disease. (Kaplan, 8/24)

Cancer deaths have been on pace to outnumber deaths from heart disease in the United States for some years now — but once again, in new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they didn’t. Heart disease has ticked upward in deaths since 2010, and it remains the number one killer of Americans. Over the last three decades, the US has seen rising mortality from cancer and falling mortality for heart disease. Those lines had been projected to cross in recent years. (Samuel, 8/24)