(soft emotional music)
- [Briggs] What is going on everyone?
Welcome back to World According to Briggs
and a video, that's very personal to me.
I'll explain later.
Today we look at states
with the highest cancer rate.
Cancer's the second leading cause of death
in the United States.
Coming only behind heart disease.
One out of every four deaths in the US
is from cancer.
Cancer is a disease that occurs when abnormal cells divide
and begin to destroy body tissue.
Cancer can affect nearly any part of the body.
I'm sure all of us have been touched by cancer.
Maybe you had it, maybe a friend or family member had it.
Almost all of us in some way or another
it's affected our lives.
Today we're looking at the states
with the highest cancer rates, according to the CDC.
All right, let's see what we got.
Number 10, Arkansas.
At number 10 we have a frequent guest on our list.
The Natural State Arkansas.
Look at the bright side, Arkansas
you aren't at the number one spot of a negative list.
One of the number one factors that contribute to cancer
is obesity.
Arkansas has a lot of obesity.
They're actually the third most obese state in the Union.
The number one type of cancer in Arkansas is bladder cancer.
Arkansas has a cancer rate of 471.4 per every 100,000
residents.
To give you an idea of how bad that is.
The state with the absolute lowest cancer rate
is South Dakota with 49.6 for every 100,000 residents.
Number nine, Maine.
Who saw this one coming?
You never see Maine on negative lists.
It just doesn't happen
unless we're talking about the cold or something like that.
Most everything about Maine is very positive,
but Maine has a lot of lung cancer diagnosis.
Tobacco use is the leading risk factor for lung cancer,
smoking and secondhand smoke both have been shown
to cause lung cancer.
The smoking rate in Maine is 17.8% of the population.
That's a lot significantly higher than the national rate
of 15%.
The cancer rate in Maine is 471.6 cases
for every 100,000 residents.
Number eight, Minnesota.
Luckily for Minnesota,
frostbite and hypothermia aren't cancers,
'cause if they were they'd be at the top of this list
and blown everyone out of the water.
Minnesota is cold.
Minnesota also has a lot of cancer diagnosis.
Minnesota sees a odd number of colorectal cancer.
They're pretty high numbers
when it comes to breast cancer too,
but colorectal compared to other states,
it's a little high here.
Minnesota's cancer rate is 472.3 cancer diagnosis
for every 100,000 residents.
Number seven, New Hampshire.
That is two New England states on a negative list.
That almost never happens.
The leading cancers in New Hampshire are breast
and prostate cancer.
This one's not a cancer,
but while I was doing the research for this,
I realized they have a very high rate of COPD,
which affects the lungs.
It doesn't turn into lung cancer,
but it does affect the lungs.
New Hampshire's cancer rate is 473.6
for every 100,000 residents.
Number six, Nebraska.
The Cornhusker State gets their fair share
of cancer diagnosis.
This one sort of surprised me.
Nebraska is a very rural state.
Rural people aren't out in poor air quality.
They're not eating a lot of processed foods,
things like that.
They're usually hardworking people
which kind of translates to exercise,
which helps bring down your cancer rate.
But here they are at number six.
The two leading types of cancer in Nebraska
are breast and prostate cancer.
Nebraska has 477.3 cancer diagnosis
for every 100,000 residents.
Number five, Louisiana.
This one does not surprise me at all.
If you ever visit Louisiana,
you will see these people eat some pretty unhealthy stuff.
It's delicious.
Don't get me wrong.
But once you get past grits and maybe steamed crawfish,
this place is everything's deep fried.
On top of that,
they do some pretty heavy drinking in this state
and they are officially one of the most obese states
we have in this country.
The Pelican State is number three
when it comes to overweight high school students,
and they're ranked eighth when it comes to tobacco use.
23% of the state actually smokes.
The national average is about 16%
61 out of every 100,000 residents
will get lung cancer in Louisiana.
But the overall cancer rate in Louisiana
is 478.6 for every 100,000 residents.
Number four
New York State.
Cancer rates tend to be a little bit higher in large cities.
New York City is one of the largest ones
we have on the planet.
I looked at some of the cities for upstate New York
and their cancer rates weren't as high as the state
as a whole.
So that tells me a lot of their numbers
will come from New York City
where a large portion of their people live.
I mean, hang out in New York City long enough,
you're bound to pick something up.
last time I was there
it's been a couple of years.
I mean, before Tesla and everyone else
started making electric cars,
you could literally taste the exhaust in the city.
It was pretty bad.
It was summer and there was no wind
the last time I was there.
And I just noticed that,
that it's like the whole place smelt like car exhaust.
New York State has pretty high numbers
in breast, prostate and lung cancer.
It's actually 132.8 for every 100,000 residents
will get breast cancer in New York state.
Prostate's 125 for every 100,000 residents.
And lung cancer is 68 for every 100,000 residents.
New York's overall cancer rate
is 480.6 for every 100,000 residents.
Number three, West Virginia.
If you know anything about the history of West Virginia
and the industries that have flourished there in the past,
you should expect this one.
I'm surprised they're not higher.
West Virginia, they smoke a lot
and they work in coal mines, not as much as they used to.
The coal industry is kind of scaling back.
So a lot of them are out of work, but in the past decades,
tons of the residents here have worked in the coal industry.
Breathing in coal dust does nothing for your health.
12% of the population of West Virginia actually believes
smoking is good for you.
Compared to the national average of 2%.
If you're one of the people that actually thinks smoking
is good for you when you smoke, think to yourself,
have you ever, smoked a half a pack
and then thought yourself, you know what?
I think I'd like to go for a run?
No, you know you can't go for a run.
So the number one cancer in West Virginia is lung cancer.
Other states it'll be like 150 for every 100,000 residents
will get lung cancer, maybe even 200.
In West Virginia, 2020 new cases
for every 100,000 residents.
That's brutal.
They're also are killing it with breast cancer.
No pun intended.
New cases for breast cancer
are 1,610 for every 100,000 residents.
The overall in West Virginia
is 482.4 for every 100,000 residents
will be diagnosed with lung cancer.
Number two, New Jersey.
This is another one if you know much about New Jersey,
it won't shock you.
New Jersey isn't a very large state.
It's actually ranked 47th in total area.
The only ones smaller are Connecticut,
Delaware and Rhode Island.
And if you count District of Columbia,
that's obviously smaller.
Yet they still have the most Superfund sites.
If you don't know what's Superfund sites,
it's areas that were kind of closed off by the government
because they're filled with toxic whatever.
New Jersey has around 100 Superfund sites currently,
they've already cleaned up 36
and taken them off the list.
So at one point they had over 140.
These as you can imagine,
didn't do anything good for the people and their health.
For decades, it was standard practice
to dump waste on the ground, in rivers
or just leave it in the open in New Jersey.
Actually, this is all state,
but New Jersey was unchecked for quite a while.
As a result, thousands of uncontrolled
or banned and contaminated sites were created.
In response to the growing concern,
the 96 Congress established the Superfund Program in 1980
to clean up all these sites, not just New Jersey.
Now that was in 1980, it's 2021.
And they've only cleaned up 36
out of about 140 in New Jersey,
California and Texas don't have nearly as many.
And they're three times as large, probably more than that.
Four or five times as large.
The most common cancers in New Jersey
are breast and prostate cancer.
The overall cancer rate in New Jersey
is 482.4 for every 100,000 residents.
All right, before we get to number one,
don't forget we got another channel called On this day.
There's a link down below
we'd love it if you check it out.
Also, don't forget to give this video a big thumbs up
and subscribe if you haven't.
All right, onto number one.
And number one, Kentucky.
Kentucky in general is a very unhealthy state.
Let's start off with high school kids.
That's the first stat you come across.
Obesity in high school students, they're ranked fourth.
The national average is about 15%.
They are 21%.
When it comes to smoking in high school, they're number two.
15% of high school students smoke in Kentucky,
only 9% nationally.
And then even above that,
they're number two when it comes to adult tobacco use
with 24% of the adult population smoking.
And when it comes to adults and obesity,
they're fifth with 37% of the population of Kentucky
being overweight adults.
It should be no surprise that their number one
form of cancer is lung cancer.
The overall cancer rate in Kentucky
is 510.2 for every 100,000 residents.
All of the states up to Kentucky were relatively close,
going from 471.4 up to 482.4.
And then they blow them out of the water.
Almost 30 above number two, what is going on in Kentucky?
(soft music)
All right that's today's video.
And like I said,
I'll explain why this means something to me.
In 1997, my mom passed away of lung cancer.
She'd been a smoker most of her life,
she'd quit probably about four or five years
before she got diagnosed.
Sort of freaks me out to know that I'm now older
than my mom ever was.
Stay healthy everyone.
Get your cancer screening test,
talk to your doctor, whatever you gotta do.
Cancer screening is very important.
The sooner, the better,
especially guys out there and get your prostate exam.
Women, please get the mammogram.
All right, everyone have a great day.
Be nice to each other.