Higher Resident Neuroticism Is Specifically Associated With Elevated State Cancer and Heart Disease Mortality Rates in the United States

Relations between state-aggregated responses of 619,397 residentsto the neuroticism items of the Big Five Inventory and 2005-2007 age-adjusted statecancer, heart disease, total all-cause, other-disease, and non-disease mortality ratesfor the 50 states were examined. Partial correlations controlling for four statedemographic variables and three risk variables showed neuroticism correlatedsignificantly only with cancer mortality (.34) and heart disease mortality (.31).Hierarchical regression with demographic variables entered first, neuroticism second,and risk variables last showed neuroticism accounted for another significant 7.6% ofcancer mortality variance and an additional significant 4.6% of heart disease mortalityvariance. Significant βs of .28 and .30, respectively, showed higher neuroticism wasassociated with higher cancer and heart disease mortality when all seven demographic andrisk variables were controlled. Overall, the results show resident neuroticism isrelated to state cancer and heart disease mortality rates but not to total all-cause,other-disease, or non-disease mortality rates