RIP, Dolly Parton: Cancer and History

Cancer is the #2 cause of death in the U.S.

Aug 28, 2026

25 Aug 2026, People: Dolly Parton Died After a ‘Brief Battle with Cancer,’ Her Team Confirms

Dolly Parton died after being diagnosed with cancer.
In a statement to PEOPLE on Aug. 25, reps for the country star confirmed that the “Jolene” singer’s death at 80 on Tuesday followed a “brief battle with cancer.” The type of cancer was not disclosed.
“Our beloved Dolly Parton spent her life and career bringing joy, laughter, hope and integrity into everything she touched. Her unmatched generosity reached the lives of countless people whom she would never meet, yet she was always there to offer a helping hand,” the statement read.
“Whether it be the hundreds of millions of books donated through her invaluable Imagination Library or funding research that helped create a lifesaving vaccine used around the world, Dolly’s unconditional love for all people was the guiding force for her lasting impact. After bravely facing a brief battle with cancer, Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones,” the statement concluded.
Parton died at 80 on Aug. 25. Her nephew, Bryan Seaver, announced the news in an Instagram video the same day.

Here is the Instagram video

And a subsequent post from the family:

Global icon and humanitarian, Dolly Parton, known to the world as a beloved singer, songwriter, philanthropist, actress, playwright, and author died peacefully today in Nashville, Tennessee. She was 80 years old.

Dolly is preceded in death by her beloved husband of 59 years Carl Thomas Dean (1942 – 2025), her mother Avie Lee Caroline Owens (1923 – 2003), and father, Robert Lee Parton, Sr. (1921 – 2000).

A rhinestone life that shone bright enough for the world to see, Dolly will forever stand as an inspiration not only through her timeless music and prolific songwriting, but also her wit, warmth, and kindness that made us all feel like family. Dolly Parton’s legacy is one of love, compassion, and resilience. With a seven-decade career, she inspired multiple generations of artists and fans with her music and an unwavering commitment to making the world a better place. Her songs will continue to resonate with people of all ages, and her philanthropic work will have a lasting impact.

At Dolly’s request, a small, private service will be held for immediate family. Dolly’s fans and friends from around the world are encouraged to pay tribute to Dolly on social media by tagging @DollyParton or by leaving a message at www.dollyparton.com

In lieu of flowers the family asks for donations to be made to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library at www.imaginationlibrary.com

Imaginary Library is Dolly Parton’s long-time reading charity intended to inspire children to read (for fun!) by giving them books that they can own for themselves. It’s been running since 1995.

Imagination Library has been operating in the U.S. for over 30 year

But before I go further, a warning, in case you landed here inadvertently (not a subscriber… subscribers already know).

Beware: Statistics to Follow

I am a life actuary, and in my “Mortality with Meep” area, I cover mortality trends, primarily in the U.S.

That is, I look at issues such as causes of death, death rates, and similar issues

Unfortunately, sometimes people land on these pieces through news aggregators, web search, AI, whatever, and expect something different.

This is no disrespect to the deceased: we’re all going to die sometimes, and we’re all going to die due to some cause(s).

If you’re not interested in this approach, you can scroll down to the very bottom of the post. I will have some extra Dolly Parton content at the bottom.

Cancer has been the #2 Cause of Death in the U.S. since 1940

First, let’s address the dread disease of cancer.

What sort of cancer Dolly Parton died from is not stated, which simplifies matters, because I will take it as the entire category of “malignant neoplasms” (that’s C00 - C97 in the ICD-10 codes) for the cause of death. Simply: cancer of any type.

In the year 1900, cancer was not yet the #2 cause of death. Multiple infectious diseases were bigger killers in the early 20th century: flu/pneumonia and tuberculosis had death rates above cancer, not to mention “gastritis”. Ah, that good ole adulterated food!

However, with the advent of better public sanitation and the Pure Food and Drug of 1906 (Thank you, Teddy Roosevelt, for both!… but also a bunch of other people), death rates from many infectious diseases took a dive in the U.S. These came at the very beginning of the 20th century. The drop was such that cancer finally became the #2 cause of death in the U.S. in 1933, but not permanently until after a flu epidemic of 1936/1937.

The development of a diphtheria vaccine and treatment in the 1920s through the 1930s also helped.

Let me show you the top causes of death in the year 1900:

From Leading causes of death, 1900-1998, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/53236

One thing to note: these are far too few deaths for the entire U.S. in 1900. It turns out this covers only some of the states at the time, partly because not all states registered deaths in 1900. It was a work in progress. Keeping in mind there may be some differences between the states that had death registrations earlier than others, we will move on.

Cancer was the #8 cause of death that year, and let’s go down the others.

Flu/pneumonia was #1. Going across the row, we see the rank, the cause of death, the coding used at the time, the total number of deaths (40,362 - more than now! And that wasn’t even all the states!), and then the crude rate per 100,000 people. Flu/pneumonia still ranks in our top 10, because it’s quite the killer of older people.

Tuberculosis was #2, and this one barely ranks now.

Diarrhea, etc., for #3, and I did mention the adulterated food (and unclean water), but this is something that killed children quite a bit.

It’s not until we get to #4, which is heart disease. We will see the trajectory for this one.

#5 is stroke. We now call it “Cerebrovascular disease”.

$6 is kidney disease.

#7 is accidental death, our now perennial, unhappy #3 in the modern era, as it contains such ugly realities as drug overdoses of younger adults, falls of seniors, and motor vehicle accident deaths. Plus drowning and lightning strike deaths, but those last two take up a small portion of the overall count. Back in 1900, I’m sure far more of those accidental deaths involved occupational hazards and ship boilers exploding, such as the sinking of the General Slocum in the East River in 1904, killing over 1300 people.

Then we get to cancer at #8.

That’s all to get to this graph:

Trajectories of major causes of death in 1900 in the U.S., and how they fared to 2025

In the above graph, I’m graphing the age-adjusted death rates for various causes of death (for an explanation of age-adjustment of death rates see here: Mortality Basics with Meep: Age-Adjusted Death Rates v. Crude Death Rates for U.S. 1968-2020). I didn’t track all the major causes (I dropped diarrhea… -cough-).

But notice what happens with the different causes of death.

Tuberculosis has a glide path to near 0 by 1950.

Kidney disease was somewhat level for a while, took a dive from 1940 to 1950 (Not sure why — too early for either dialysis or transplantation), and unfortunately has been creeping up of late, albeit at a lower rate.

Flu/pneumonia has a little spike near 1920 (gee, I wonder what happened near then?), but has gradually improved over the decades.

Accidental causes… well, there had been steady improvement for decades until first, oxy and then fentanyl. Whee. We’ll see if the post-pandemic improvement catches on.

But let’s look at stroke, heart disease, and cancer, because these three have one big driver for one scary trajectory, and then some slower-moving aspects.

Remember Cancer Sticks?

Obviously, plenty of people who don’t smoke suffer cancer, heart disease, or a stroke.

However, the large spike up and then down for all three, save the timing, is related. The timing differs because how long it takes for the problem to develop. Smoking to heart attack or stroke is far faster than lung cancer.

Yes, there has been improvements in treatment for all three, whether smoking-related or not, which has helped mortality rates.

But one big help has been the reduction in smoking rates.

When one looks at death rates by cancer type, it becomes obvious.

Top cancer death rates by type, 1968-2023, U.S.

The dominance of lung cancer as deadliest cancer (currently) has hidden the movements of other cancer death rate trends when we look at cancer death rates as a group.

But pulling back…

If we look at only 1980-2025, we can see the trajectories of death rates for cancer and heart disease were such that people had been assuming that in the 2010s cancer would become the #1 cause of death.

But it didn’t.

This has come from both movements in trends in cancer death rates and heart disease death rates. The pandemic really threw both cancer and heart disease trends off.

I wonder if cancer will ever become the #1 cause of death in the U.S., or if treatments for cancer will continue to outrace those for heart disease, so that the two will not flip…. or if there will be another era in which the causes of death will be very different, as what happened over the 20th century.