Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes Hospitalizations in Minnesota
This page provides rates for cardiovascular and diabetes-related hospitalizations in Minnesota. Hospitalization data shows the rate of hospitalizations for each chronic condition. The rate is shown for every 100,000 people living in Minnesota.
Chronic conditions
Chronic conditions are health conditions or diseases that can last a year or more and may require ongoing medical treatment. They may also impact your physical health, mental well-being, daily life, and ability to do the activities you love.
Chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease are all tied very closely to where you live and work, your culture, and your daily activities. Healthy behaviors also play a role. Making healthy choices as much as possible can reduce your risk of developing a chronic condition. It can also help you feel healthier, enjoy life, and live longer.
When chronic conditions are not adequately managed or controlled, it is more likely that people with those conditions will develop serious health issues that require hospitalization. Higher hospitalization rates in specific population groups may mean they experience challenges in disease management and have more opportunities for improvement.
For more info, visit About Chronic Conditions.
Reasons for hospitalizations
Reasons for diabetes-related hospitalizations fall into two categories:
- Hospitalizations for blood sugar that is either extremely high or extremely low (such as ketoacidosis or coma).
- Hospitalizations for conditions that are likely caused (in part) by the long-term effects of repeatedly high blood sugars like eye problems, kidney disease, heart disease, and stroke.
We examine diabetes-related hospitalizations two ways to more fully understand the impact of diabetes.
Diabetes (primary cause)
Hospitalizations for diabetes as a primary cause are hospitalizations for extremely high or low blood sugars. Extremely high or low blood sugars are acute or sudden events that need treatment either at a clinic or in a hospital setting. The most severe cases require hospitalization.
Diabetes (all causes)
All cause hospitalizations for diabetes fall into two categories:
- Diabetes as a primary cause.
- Hospitalizations for conditions that can develop, at least in part, due to the long-term impact of elevated blood sugars.
Understanding all hospitalizations including short-term and long-term effects of diabetes helps us to understand the full impact of diabetes on hospitalization and health.
Hospitalizations for heart disease include many conditions, including time-critical emergencies like heart attacks and cardiac arrest and planned surgeries or procedures to address heart disease, including for blood vessel diseases, congestive heart failure, irregular heartbeats, and other diseases of the heart muscle or heart valves.
Many of these conditions are caused by atherosclerosis (when plaque builds up in the arteries and makes it difficult for blood to flow through).
Hospitalizations for stroke occur when the blood supply to the brain is suddenly stopped. These are time-critical emergencies that require immediate hospital care.
There are two main types of strokes:
- The majority are ischemic strokes, which occur when a clot cuts off blood flow to the brain.
- A hemorrhagic stroke is less common and occurs when a blood vessel ruptures in the brain.
Transient ischemic attacks (TIA), often called mini strokes, are also counted as stroke hospitalizations in this dashboard. These occur when blood flow is temporarily disrupted in the brain.
How to use the data
This dashboard allows you to view hospitalization rates for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes in Minnesota. You may choose to view crude or age-adjusted rates. Visit How to Use Chronic Disease Data to find out which type of data is most appropriate for your needs. Rates are calculated as the number of hospitalizations divided by the number of Minnesotans. People may be hospitalized more than once and each hospitalization is counted in the rate.
Race, ethnicity, and age
Minnesota has some of the biggest health disparities in the country between whites and people of color and American Indians. These health differences have in part resulted from structural racism, which refers to racism that is built into systems and policies, rather than individual prejudice. Systemic racism and discrimination-related stress also impacts Black, American Indian, and other marginalized communities, putting them at higher risk of developing chronic conditions.
For more information about how MDH shares race and ethnicity data, visit How to Use Chronic Disease Data.
Health disparities observed by race and ethnicity begin early in life, increasing risk for developing chronic conditions earlier, and therefore leading to more hospitalizations at younger ages. These disparities persist across the lifespan but are wider at younger age groups.
Among young adults, disparities continue due to the history of discriminatory practices in health care in addition to systemic barriers to timely access to health care such as coverage gaps, connectedness to the health care system, and limited access to quality health care facilities. These barriers impact the ability to manage chronic conditions and find preventative care which translates to a higher burden of hospitalizations.
Community factors influencing health
Health is created where people live, work, and play. Factors such as being able to find and afford nutritious food, experiencing discrimination and violence, or having safe housing and transportation, quality education, and a trusted support system all contribute to your health. These factors that impact your health are known as social determinants of health.
View data by some of these factors below.
County data
The map and table below show hospitalization rates by Minnesota county. Clicking on a county will show the overall hospitalization rate for that county. The table shows the overall county hospitalization rates as well as by race or ethnicity. For some counties, hospitalization rates by race or ethnicity are shown when 1) the number of hospitalizations meets MDH data suppression thresholds and 2) the proportion of hospitalizations with missing race and ethnicity information is less than 15%.
Trend data
The chart below shows how hospitalization rates have changed over time. In 2015, the coding system for diagnosis changed from ICD-9 to ICD-10, which introduces some uncertainty in the trend through that time period. Changes in coding may lead to differences in classification of conditions before and after the transition.
Data source
These results are analyses conducted by the Minnesota Department of Health based on data from the Hospital Discharge Dataset. Data are collected and provided to the Minnesota Department of Health by the Minnesota Hospital Association. The dataset captures hospitalizations for Minnesota residents and comes from Minnesota hospitals (except for Federal Hospitals owned by the Veterans Administration or the Indian Health Service) or other states that share data with the state of Minnesota (including the bordering states of Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota; hospitalizations that occur in Wisconsin for Minnesota residents are not included/shared). Annual population estimates were obtained through the U.S. Census Bureau in collaboration with the National Center for Health Statistics.
Hospitalizations for diabetes, heart disease and stroke are identified using the following diagnosis codes. Hospitalizations before October 2015 use International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision (ICD-9) coding. More recent hospitalizations use ICD-10 coding.
Diabetes (first listed diagnosis or first seven diagnoses)
- ICD-9: 250
- ICD-10: E10, E12, E13
Heart Disease (first listed diagnosis)
- ICD-9: 390-398, 402, 404, 410-429
- ICD-10: I00-I09, I11, I13, I20-I51
Stroke/Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) (first listed diagnosis)
- ICD-9: 430-434, 436-438, 435
- ICD-10: I60-I69, G45.9
The change from ICD-9 to ICD-10 introduces some uncertainty in the trend from 2014 through 2016, because changes in coding may lead to differences in how conditions were classified before and after the transition. Hospitalizations where the patient was discharged to another hospital are excluded to prevent double-counting single events that resulted in hospitalization at more than one hospital.
For more information
- Diabetes Hospitalization in Minnesota (2006-2014) (PDF). This report highlights dropping rates of hospitalizations in Minnesota and this indicator’s connection to a variety of other data across the state.
Contact us
For more information, contact health.heart@state.mn.us