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Looking only at death rates, and primarily at mortality prominent in 1969, gives a necessary but not sufficient profile of the health of the nation and the citizens within it – missing issues like the rapid ascendance of Alzheimer’s disease, the rise and reduction of HIV/AIDS, the more recent ascendance of diabetes deaths( tracking the obesity epidemic) and persistent disparities in health care, for example the sustained gap between blacks and whites, we now have the science and the capacity to develop a system of vital signs that can give a much better picture of our health progress.