Mesothelioma statistics in the United States

The national picture

• New cases: CDC WONDER's U.S. Cancer Statistics count 14,601 new mesothelioma diagnoses in 2018 to 2022, an age-adjusted rate of 7.3 per million people per year.
• Deaths: the same source counts 11,448 deaths with mesothelioma as the underlying cause in 2019 to 2023, an age-adjusted rate of 5.6 per million per year.
• Who is affected: in NIOSH's 2000 to 2004 death data, 18.9% of people who died with mesothelioma were women. The American Cancer Society notes the disease is much more common in men, probably because men more often worked in jobs with heavy asbestos exposure, and that it is rare under age 45.
• Latency: the time between first asbestos exposure and diagnosis is usually 20 to 50 years, according to the American Cancer Society. That is why today's cases mostly reflect exposures from decades ago.

Rankings

• Mesothelioma rates by state: all 50 states and the District of Columbia, ranked by age-adjusted death rate for 2019 to 2023, with new cases for 2018 to 2022 and NIOSH's 1999 to 2004 rates.
• Rates by county and metro area: NIOSH's list of the counties with the highest death rates in 2000 to 2004, and CDC WONDER's metro areas for 2019 to 2023.

The highest state death rates in 2019 to 2023 were in Alaska, Maine, Minnesota, Delaware, Washington.

How to read these numbers

• Rates are per 1,000,000 people per year, not per 100,000, because mesothelioma is rare. CDC WONDER rates are age-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. standard population, so states with older populations can be compared fairly with younger ones.
• The state is where the person lived when they were diagnosed or died, not where the asbestos exposure happened. Many people were exposed decades earlier in another state, at a shipyard, in the military, or at a plant.
• Small numbers swing. A state or county with few cases can move up or down the list from one period to the next. CDC WONDER suppresses counts under 16 to protect privacy, which is why some places show no number.
• Two different data systems. CDC WONDER's U.S. Cancer Statistics count mesothelioma as the underlying cause of death (or a new diagnosis). The NIOSH tables count deaths where mesothelioma appears anywhere on the death certificate, for people age 15 and over, in 1999 to 2004 or 2000 to 2004. The two sets of rates are not directly comparable.
• These statistics describe populations. They cannot tell you your own risk. If you were exposed to asbestos, talk with your doctor.

Where these numbers come from

• U.S. Cancer Statistics (USCS) are the official federal cancer statistics, produced by CDC and the National Cancer Institute from state cancer registries and death certificates. We queried them through CDC WONDER on October 28, 2026.
• NIOSH's Work-Related Lung Disease Surveillance Report 2007 is the most recent federal report we found with county-level mesothelioma rankings. It uses death certificate data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

We publish the numbers as the agencies report them and do not adjust or estimate. If a figure here looks wrong, please tell us through the contact form.