To replicate our findings, the following files are needed: (1) Mortality- multiple cause of death, states and all counties- Detailed The request form for this data can be found here- http://www.naphsis.org/Pages/VitalStatisticsDataResearchRequestProcess.aspx (2) Causes of death need to be converted to the classification system found here- http://www.pophealthmetrics.com/content/8/1/9/additional Citation: Naghavi, M., Makela, S., Foreman, K., O’Brien, J., Pourmalek, F., & Lozano, R. (2010). Algorithms for enhancing public health utility of national causes-of-death data. Population Health Metrics, 8(9), 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-7954-8-9 (3) In the appendix, we lay out the modifications we made to this cause of death list. (4) Bridged race intercensal population estimates can be found here- http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/bridged_race/data_documentation.htm#vintage2009 Citation: National Center for Health Statistics. (2012b). Bridged-race intercensal estimates of the resident population of the United States for July 1, 2000-July 1, 2009, by year, county, single-year of age (0, 1, 2, .., 85 years and over), bridged race, hispanic origin, and sex. Available from: /nchs/nvss/bridged_race.htm as of October 26, 2012, following release by the U.S. Census Bureau of the revised unbridged intercensal estimates by 5-year age group on October 9, 2012. (5) Age standardization weights can be found here- http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr47/nvs47_03.pdf Citation: Anderson, R. N., & Rosenberg, H. M. (1998). Age standardization of death rates: implementation of the year 2000 standard. National Vital Statistics Report, 47(3), 1–16, 20. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr47/nvs47_03.pdf You can then calculate age-standardized death rates by state and cause. Since we cannot share sensitive data, we have provided a sample dataset in the attached zip file. The “Code for Factor Analysis” file gives instructions and code for reading in the state_death_matrix csv file and conducting a factor analysis on it. After running the code, you will have three new csv’s containing factor loadings, eigenvalues, and factor scores as well as a scree plot graph.