A history and critique of U.S. mortality atlases.

This article presents a brief history of U.S. small area mortality atlases published since 1975, focusing on their content, cartographic style and findings resulting from the maps. The atlas designs are evaluated on the basis of map design recommendations from cartographers and from a series of cognitive experiments on information extraction from rate maps. Despite some design limitations, the atlases adequately described patterns of U.S. mortality data, resulting in important etiologic findings and action to reduce cancer rates and health disparities.