Chronic diseases are the leading cause of illness, disability, and death in Virginia and in the United States. Chronic diseases are conditions that last one year or more and need ongoing medical attention. They can also limit activities of daily living (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Fast Facts:
- In 2021, 38.6% of adult Virginians reported having high blood cholesterol and 34.4% reported having hypertension.
Hospitalizations
- In 2021, there were nearly 1.7 million hospitalizations among Virginians related to 12 Alzheimer’s Disease, Arthritis, Asthma, Cardiovascular Disease, Chronic Kidney Disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Diabetes, High Blood Cholesterol, Hypertension, Ischemic Heart Disease, non-Alzheimer’s Dementia, Strokecommon chronic disease conditions.
- Hospitalizations for most chronic conditions increase with age and are highest among older adults; however, the highest rate of hospitalizations for asthma occurs among younger adults 18 to 44 years old.
Deaths
- In 2021, there were 53,285 deaths among Virginians related to common chronic conditions.
- Males experienced higher rates of death for cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.
- Females experienced higher rates of death for Alzheimer's disease & related dementias, asthma, and stroke.
Use the buttons below to explore the Chronic Disease in Virginia data dashboard. It shows the burden of common chronic conditions among Virginians. The dashboard includes three data sources - prevalence, hospitalizations, and deaths.
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Looking for more information about chronic disease data? Find out about the data used in this dashboard, download data from the dashboard, or submit a data request for additional data not found in the dashboard.
Death Data
Data Source: Death (mortality) data are gathered from the Vital Event Statistics Program at the Virginia Department of Health. Deaths are reported by the Virginia city or county where the decedent normally resided at the time of death, regardless of where the death occurred.
Population Estimates: Population estimates are obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Death rates for 2016 to 2020 are based on the corresponding NCHS year population estimates. Death rates for 2021 are calculated using 2020 population estimates.
Age-adjusted Rates: Age-adjusted death rates are presented as deaths per 100,000 population. Death rates are adjusted (weighted) to the proportion of persons in each age group. The standard age-distribution of the U.S. population in 2000 is used to calculate age-adjusted rates. The benefit of age-adjusted rates compared with unadjusted (crude) rates is it allows for comparisons across groups (geography, ethnicity, race, and sex) of different age compositions.
Causes of Death: International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) medical coding are used to report underlying and contributing cause(s) of death.
Chronic Disease Definitions (using ICD-10 Codes):
- Heart Disease: I00-I09, I11, I13, I20-I51
- Diabetes: E10-E14
- Cardiovascular Disease: I00-I78
- Asthma: J45, J46
- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: J44
- Stroke: I60-I69
- Alzheimer’s Disease: G30
- Hypertension: I10, I12, I15
- Chronic Kidney Disease: N181-N185, N189
Ethnicity and Race: Only two ethnic classes are recognized in the data, Hispanic and Non-Hispanic, where the term Hispanic refers to persons who can trace their ancestry in some degree to the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula and the nations of Portugal and Spain. The term Latino is also used for Hispanic. Thus, a Hispanic may be of any race. Presented race categories are based on the race methods and categories set forth by the U.S. Census Populations with Bridged Race Categories. The race is reported as race of the decedent at death.
Other: Data are produced and processed from sources believed to be reliable and accurate at that point of time. No warranty expressed or implied is made regarding accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability or usefulness of any information. Additionally, not all data elements are reported at the source. Please see Virginia Code §32.1 for information on data mandated to be conveyed by the patient and/or facility. This disclaimer applies to both isolated and aggregate uses of the data. Unknown/Unreported variables were removed from the tables. Counts lower than 20 and their associated rates should be interpreted with caution.
Hospitalization Data
Data Source: Inpatient hospitalization data are received from the Virginia Health Information (VHI) and maintained by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH). Data represent Virginia residents hospitalized within Virginia. Virginia residents hospitalized out of state are not included. Patients discharged from an inpatient hospitalization more than once with the same diagnoses/conditions would be counted more than once in these statistics. Population Estimates: Population estimates are obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Hospitalization rates for 2016 to 2020 are based on the corresponding NCHS year population estimates. Hospitalization rates for 2021 are calculated using 2020 population estimates.
Age-adjusted Rates: Age-adjusted rates are presented as hospitalizations per 100,000 population. Hospitalization rates are adjusted (weighted) to the proportion of persons in each age group. The standard age-distribution of the U.S. population in 2000 is used to calculate age-adjusted rates. The benefit of age-adjusted rates compared with unadjusted (crude) rates is it allows for comparisons across groups (geography, ethnicity, race, and sex) of different age compositions.
Chronic Disease Definitions:
International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) codes are used to identify chronic disease indicators. Definitions are based on the Chronic Disease Data Warehouse developed under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Patients hospitalized with a chronic condition for any reason found in a diagnosis list of up to 18 available diagnoses are included. More information can be found on this website: https://www2.ccwdata.org/web/guest/condition-categories-chronic.
Cardiovascular disease is defined as a disease of the heart and circulatory system including seven conditions that are leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the state of Virginia: acute myocardial infarction, atrial fibrillation, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, non-ischemic heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, and stroke. Heart failure is included in both the ischemic and non-ischemic heart disease categories.
Prevalence Data
Data Source: Prevalence data come from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, also known as the Virginia Adult Health Survey, collected by the Virginia Department of Health. Counts and percentages collected through the BRFSS survey are weighted to represent the adult population of Virginia. Weighting adjusts for demographic differences between persons who answer the survey questions and the population that they represent. Survey responses of “don’t know/not sure,” refusal to answer, or missing answers are not included in the data. Estimates calculated from an unweighted sample size of 20 or less responses or with a confidence interval half width greater than 10 for any cell are suppressed and shown as a dash (-).
Chronic Disease Definitions:
- Arthritis: Has a doctor, nurse or other health professional ever told you that you had some form of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus, or fibromyalgia?
- Chronic Kidney Disease: Has a doctor, nurse or other health professional ever told you that you had kidney disease? Does not include kidney stones, bladder infection or incontinence.
- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Has a doctor, nurse, or other health professional ever told you that you had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema or chronic bronchitis.
- Current Asthma: Has a doctor, nurse or other health professional ever told you that you still have asthma?
- Diabetes: Has a doctor, nurse, or other health professional ever told you that you had diabetes? Does not include diabetes during pregnancy.
- Heart Disease: Has a doctor, nurse, or other health professional ever told you that you had angina or coronary heart disease?
- Hypertension: Has a doctor, nurse, or other health professional ever told you that you have high blood pressure? Does not include high blood pressure during pregnancy.
- High Blood Cholesterol: Has a doctor, nurse, or other health professional ever told you that your cholesterol is high?
- Lifetime Asthma: Has a doctor, nurse, or other health professional ever told you that you had asthma?
- Prediabetes: Has a doctor, nurse, or other health professional ever told you that you have prediabetes or borderline diabetes? Does not include prediabetes during pregnancy.
- Stroke: Has a doctor, nurse, or other health professional ever told you that you had stroke?