In 2023, there were approximately 750.5 deaths by all causes per 100,000 inhabitants in the United States. This statistic shows the death rate for all causes in the United States between 1950 and 2023. Causes of death in the U.S. Over the past decades, chronic conditions and non-communicable diseases have come to the forefront of health concerns and have contributed to major causes of death all over the globe. In 2022, the leading cause of death in the U.S. was heart disease, followed by cancer. However, the death rates for both heart disease and cancer have decreased in the U.S. over the past two decades. On the other hand, the number of deaths due to Alzheimer’s disease – which is strongly linked to cardiovascular disease- has increased by almost 141 percent between 2000 and 2021. Risk and lifestyle factors Lifestyle factors play a major role in cardiovascular health and the development of various diseases and conditions. Modifiable lifestyle factors that are known to reduce risk of both cancer and cardiovascular disease among people of all ages include smoking cessation, maintaining a healthy diet, and exercising regularly. An estimated two million new cases of cancer in the U.S. are expected in 2025.

Number of deaths and mortality rates, by age group, sex, and place of residence, 1991 to most recent year.

The child mortality rate in the United States, for children under the age of five, was 462.9 deaths per thousand births in 1800. This means that for every thousand babies born in 1800, over 46 percent did not make it to their fifth birthday. Over the course of the next 220 years, this number has dropped drastically, and the rate has dropped to its lowest point ever in 2020 where it is just seven deaths per thousand births. Although the child mortality rate has decreased greatly over this 220 year period, there were two occasions where it increased; in the 1870s, as a result of the fourth cholera pandemic, smallpox outbreaks, and yellow fever, and in the late 1910s, due to the Spanish Flu pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the global death rate, reaching *** in 2021, but had little to no significant impact on birth rates, causing population growth to dip slightly. On a global level, population growth is determined by the difference between the birth and death rates, known as the rate of natural change. On a national or regional level, migration also affects population change. Ongoing trends Since the middle of the 20th century, the global birth rate has been well above the global death rate; however, the gap between these figures has grown closer in recent years. The death rate is projected to overtake the birth rate in the 2080s, which means that the world's population will then go into decline. In the future, death rates will increase due to ageing populations across the world and a plateau in life expectancy. Why does this change? There are many reasons for the decline in death and birth rates in recent decades. Falling death rates have been driven by a reduction in infant and child mortality, as well as increased life expectancy. Falling birth rates were also driven by the reduction in child mortality, whereby mothers would have fewer children as survival rates rose - other factors include the drop in child marriage, improved contraception access and efficacy, and women choosing to have children later in life.

Number of deaths and age-specific mortality rates for selected grouped causes, by age group and sex, 2000 to most recent year.

In the United States in 2021, the death rate was highest among those aged 85 and over, with about 17,190.5 men and 14,914.5 women per 100,000 of the population passing away. For all ages, the death rate was at 1,118.2 per 100,000 of the population for males, and 970.8 per 100,000 of the population for women. The death rate Death rates generally are counted as the number of deaths per 1,000 or 100,000 of the population and include both deaths of natural and unnatural causes. The death rate in the United States had pretty much held steady since 1990 until it started to increase over the last decade, with the highest death rates recorded in recent years. While the birth rate in the United States has been decreasing, it is still currently higher than the death rate. Causes of death There are a myriad number of causes of death in the United States, but the most recent data shows the top three leading causes of death to be heart disease, cancers, and accidents. Heart disease was also the leading cause of death worldwide.

Rank, number of deaths, percentage of deaths, and age-specific mortality rates for the leading causes of death, by age group and sex, 2000 to most recent year.

VITAL SIGNS INDICATOR Life Expectancy (EQ6)

FULL MEASURE NAME Life Expectancy

LAST UPDATED April 2017

DESCRIPTION Life expectancy refers to the average number of years a newborn is expected to live if mortality patterns remain the same. The measure reflects the mortality rate across a population for a point in time.

DATA SOURCE State of California, Department of Health: Death Records (1990-2013) No link

California Department of Finance: Population Estimates Annual Intercensal Population Estimates (1990-2010) Table P-2: County Population by Age (2010-2013) http://www.dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Demographics/Estimates/

U.S. Census Bureau: Decennial Census ZCTA Population (2000-2010) http://factfinder.census.gov

U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey 5-Year Population Estimates (2013) http://factfinder.census.gov

CONTACT INFORMATION vitalsigns.info@mtc.ca.gov

METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator) Life expectancy is commonly used as a measure of the health of a population. Life expectancy does not reflect how long any given individual is expected to live; rather, it is an artificial measure that captures an aspect of the mortality rates across a population that can be compared across time and populations. More information about the determinants of life expectancy that may lead to differences in life expectancy between neighborhoods can be found in the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII) Health Inequities in the Bay Area report at http://www.barhii.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/barhii_hiba.pdf. Vital Signs measures life expectancy at birth (as opposed to cohort life expectancy). A statistical model was used to estimate life expectancy for Bay Area counties and ZIP Codes based on current life tables which require both age and mortality data. A life table is a table which shows, for each age, the survivorship of a people from a certain population.

Current life tables were created using death records and population estimates by age. The California Department of Public Health provided death records based on the California death certificate information. Records include age at death and residential ZIP Code. Single-year age population estimates at the regional- and county-level comes from the California Department of Finance population estimates and projections for ages 0-100+. Population estimates for ages 100 and over are aggregated to a single age interval. Using this data, death rates in a population within age groups for a given year are computed to form unabridged life tables (as opposed to abridged life tables). To calculate life expectancy, the probability of dying between the jth and (j+1)st birthday is assumed uniform after age 1. Special consideration is taken to account for infant mortality.

For the ZIP Code-level life expectancy calculation, it is assumed that postal ZIP Codes share the same boundaries as ZIP Code Census Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs). More information on the relationship between ZIP Codes and ZCTAs can be found at http://www.census.gov/geo/reference/zctas.html. ZIP Code-level data uses three years of mortality data to make robust estimates due to small sample size. Year 2013 ZIP Code life expectancy estimates reflects death records from 2011 through 2013. 2013 is the last year with available mortality data. Death records for ZIP Codes with zero population (like those associated with P.O. Boxes) were assigned to the nearest ZIP Code with population. ZIP Code population for 2000 estimates comes from the Decennial Census. ZIP Code population for 2013 estimates are from the American Community Survey (5-Year Average). ACS estimates are adjusted using Decennial Census data for more accurate population estimates. An adjustment factor was calculated using the ratio between the 2010 Decennial Census population estimates and the 2012 ACS 5-Year (with middle year 2010) population estimates. This adjustment factor is particularly important for ZCTAs with high homeless population (not living in group quarters) where the ACS may underestimate the ZCTA population and therefore underestimate the life expectancy. The ACS provides ZIP Code population by age in five-year age intervals. Single-year age population estimates were calculated by distributing population within an age interval to single-year ages using the county distribution. Counties were assigned to ZIP Codes based on majority land-area.

ZIP Codes in the Bay Area vary in population from over 10,000 residents to less than 20 residents. Traditional life expectancy estimation (like the one used for the regional- and county-level Vital Signs estimates) cannot be used because they are highly inaccurate for small populations and may result in over/underestimation of life expectancy. To avoid inaccurate estimates, ZIP Codes with populations of less than 5,000 were aggregated with neighboring ZIP Codes until the merged areas had a population of more than 5,000. ZIP Code 94103, representing Treasure Island, was dropped from the dataset due to its small population and having no bordering ZIP Codes. In this way, the original 305 Bay Area ZIP Codes were reduced to 217 ZIP Code areas for 2013 estimates. Next, a form of Bayesian random-effects analysis was used which established a prior distribution of the probability of death at each age using the regional distribution. This prior is used to shore up the life expectancy calculations where data were sparse.

Life table data for "Bounce backs amid continued losses: Life expectancy changes since COVID-19"

cc-by Jonas Schöley, José Manuel Aburto, Ilya Kashnitsky, Maxi S. Kniffka, Luyin Zhang, Hannaliis Jaadla, Jennifer B. Dowd, and Ridhi Kashyap. "Bounce backs amid continued losses: Life expectancy changes since COVID-19".

These are CSV files of life tables over the years 2015 through 2021 across 29 countries analyzed in the paper "Bounce backs amid continued losses: Life expectancy changes since COVID-19".

40-lifetables.csv

Life table statistics 2015 through 2021 by sex, region and quarter with uncertainty quantiles based on Poisson replication of death counts. Actual life tables and expected life tables (under the assumption of pre-COVID mortality trend continuation) are provided.

30-lt_input.csv

Life table input data.

id: unique row identifier

region_iso: iso3166-2 region codes

sex: Male, Female, Total

year: iso year

age_start: start of age group

age_width: width of age group, Inf for age_start 100, otherwise 1

nweeks_year: number of weeks in that year, 52 or 53

death_total: number of deaths by any cause

population_py: person-years of exposure (adjusted for leap-weeks and missing weeks in input data on all cause deaths)

death_total_nweeksmiss: number of weeks in the raw input data with at least one missing death count for this region-sex-year stratum. missings are counted when the week is implicitly missing from the input data or if any NAs are encounted in this week or if age groups are implicitly missing for this week in the input data (e.g. 40-45, 50-55)

death_total_minnageraw: the minimum number of age-groups in the raw input data within this region-sex-year stratum

death_total_maxnageraw: the maximum number of age-groups in the raw input data within this region-sex-year stratum

death_total_minopenageraw: the minimum age at the start of the open age group in the raw input data within this region-sex-year stratum

death_total_maxopenageraw: the maximum age at the start of the open age group in the raw input data within this region-sex-year stratum

death_total_source: source of the all-cause death data

death_total_prop_q1: observed proportion of deaths in first quarter of year

death_total_prop_q2: observed proportion of deaths in second quarter of year

death_total_prop_q3: observed proportion of deaths in third quarter of year

death_total_prop_q4: observed proportion of deaths in fourth quarter of year

death_expected_prop_q1: expected proportion of deaths in first quarter of year

death_expected_prop_q2: expected proportion of deaths in second quarter of year

death_expected_prop_q3: expected proportion of deaths in third quarter of year

death_expected_prop_q4: expected proportion of deaths in fourth quarter of year

population_midyear: midyear population (July 1st)

population_source: source of the population count/exposure data

death_covid: number of deaths due to covid

death_covid_date: number of deaths due to covid as of

death_covid_nageraw: the number of age groups in the covid input data

ex_wpp_estimate: life expectancy estimates from the World Population prospects for a five year period, merged at the midpoint year

ex_hmd_estimate: life expectancy estimates from the Human Mortality Database

nmx_hmd_estimate: death rate estimates from the Human Mortality Database

nmx_cntfc: Lee-Carter death rate projections based on trend in the years 2015 through 2019

Deaths

source:

STMF input data series (https://www.mortality.org/Public/STMF/Outputs/stmf.csv)

ONS for GB-EAW pre 2020

CDC for US pre 2020

STMF:

harmonized to single ages via pclm

pclm iterates over country, sex, year, and within-year age grouping pattern and converts irregular age groupings, which may vary by country, year and week into a regular age grouping of 0:110

smoothing parameters estimated via BIC grid search seperately for every pclm iteration

last age group set to [110,111)

ages 100:110+ are then summed into 100+ to be consistent with mid-year population information

deaths in unknown weeks are considered; deaths in unknown ages are not considered

ONS:

data already in single ages

ages 100:105+ are summed into 100+ to be consistent with mid-year population information

PCLM smoothing applied to for consistency reasons

CDC:

The CDC data comes in single ages 0:100 for the US. For 2020 we only have the STMF data in a much coarser age grouping, i.e. (0, 1, 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85+). In order to calculate life-tables in a manner consistent with 2020, we summarise the pre 2020 US death counts into the 2020 age grouping and then apply the pclm ungrouping into single year ages, mirroring the approach to the 2020 data

Population

source:

for years 2000 to 2019: World Population Prospects 2019 single year-age population estimates 1950-2019

for year 2020: World Population Prospects 2019 single year-age population projections 2020-2100

mid-year population

mid-year population translated into exposures:

if a region reports annual deaths using the Gregorian calendar definition of a year (365 or 366 days long) set exposures equal to mid year population estimates

if a region reports annual deaths using the iso-week-year definition of a year (364 or 371 days long), and if there is a leap-week in that year, set exposures equal to 371/364*mid_year_population to account for the longer reporting period. in years without leap-weeks set exposures equal to mid year population estimates. further multiply by fraction of observed weeks on all weeks in a year.

COVID deaths

source: COVerAGE-DB (https://osf.io/mpwjq/)

the data base reports cumulative numbers of COVID deaths over days of a year, we extract the most up to date yearly total

External life expectancy estimates

source:

World Population Prospects (https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Files/1_Indicators%20(Standard)/CSV_FILES/WPP2019_Life_Table_Medium.csv), estimates for the five year period 2015-2019

Human Mortality Database (https://mortality.org/), single year and age tables

The average for 2022 based on 196 countries was 8.24 deaths per 1000 people. The highest value was in the Central African Republic: 55.13 deaths per 1000 people and the lowest value was in Qatar: 0.93 deaths per 1000 people. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

One in every 100 children dies before completing one year of life. Around 68 percent of infant mortality is attributed to deaths of children before completing 1 month. 15,000 children die every day – Child mortality is an everyday tragedy of enormous scale that rarely makes the headlines Child mortality rates have declined in all world regions, but the world is not on track to reach the Sustainable Development Goal for child mortality Before the Modern Revolution child mortality was very high in all societies that we have knowledge of – a quarter of all children died in the first year of life, almost half died before reaching the end of puberty Over the last two centuries all countries in the world have made very rapid progress against child mortality. From 1800 to 1950 global mortality has halved from around 43% to 22.5%. Since 1950 the mortality rate has declined five-fold to 4.5% in 2015. All countries in the world have benefitted from this progress In the past it was very common for parents to see children die, because both, child mortality rates and fertility rates were very high. In Europe in the mid 18th century parents lost on average between 3 and 4 of their children Based on this overview we are asking where the world is today – where are children dying and what are they dying from?

5.4 million children died in 2017 – Where did these children die? Pneumonia is the most common cause of death, preterm births and neonatal disorders is second, and diarrheal diseases are third – What are children today dying from? This is the basis for answering the question what can we do to make further progress against child mortality? We will extend this entry over the course of 2020.

@article{owidchildmortality, author = {Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie and Bernadeta Dadonaite}, title = {Child and Infant Mortality}, journal = {Our World in Data}, year = {2013}, note = {https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality} }

Number and percentage of deaths, by age group, sex, and place of residence, 1991 to most recent year.

The infant mortality rate is defined as the number of deaths of children under one year of age, expressed per 1 000 live births. Some of the international variation in infant mortality rates is due to variations among countries in registering practices for premature infants. The United States and Canada are two countries which register a much higher proportion of babies weighing less than 500g, with low odds of survival, resulting in higher reported infant mortality. In Europe, several countries apply a minimum gestational age of 22 weeks (or a birth weight threshold of 500g) for babies to be registered as live births. This indicator is measured in terms of deaths per 1 000 live births.

This indicator is a summary measure of premature mortality, providing an explicit way of weighting deaths occurring at younger ages, which may be preventable. The calculation of Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL) involves summing up deaths occurring at each age and multiplying this with the number of remaining years to live up to a selected age limit (age 75 is used in OECD Health Statistics). In order to assure cross-country and trend comparison, the PYLL are standardised, for each country and each year. The total OECD population in 2010 is taken as the reference population for age standardisation. This indicator is presented as a total and per gender. It is measured in years lost per 100 000 inhabitants (total), per 100 000 men and per 100 000 women, aged 0-69.

Life expectancy at birth is defined as how long, on average, a newborn can expect to live, if current death rates do not change. However, the actual age-specific death rate of any particular birth cohort cannot be known in advance. If rates are falling, actual life spans will be higher than life expectancy calculated using current death rates. Life expectancy at birth is one of the most frequently used health status indicators. Gains in life expectancy at birth can be attributed to a number of factors, including rising living standards, improved lifestyle and better education, as well as greater access to quality health services. This indicator is presented as a total and per gender and is measured in years.

Monthly COVID-19 death rates per 100,000 population stratified by age group, race/ethnicity, sex, and region, with race/ethnicity by age group and age group by race/ethnicity double stratification

France FR: Mortality Rate Attributed to Unintentional Poisoning: Male: per 100,000 Male Population data was reported at 0.300 Ratio in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 0.400 Ratio for 2015. France FR: Mortality Rate Attributed to Unintentional Poisoning: Male: per 100,000 Male Population data is updated yearly, averaging 0.400 Ratio from Dec 2000 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.500 Ratio in 2000 and a record low of 0.300 Ratio in 2016. France FR: Mortality Rate Attributed to Unintentional Poisoning: Male: per 100,000 Male Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s France – Table FR.World Bank: Health Statistics. Mortality rate attributed to unintentional poisonings is the number of male deaths from unintentional poisonings in a year per 100,000 male population. Unintentional poisoning can be caused by household chemicals, pesticides, kerosene, carbon monoxide and medicines, or can be the result of environmental contamination or occupational chemical exposure.; ; World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory Data Repository (http://apps.who.int/ghodata/).; Weighted average;

Basic Demographic Indicators: Mortality rates according to sex, educational level and age up to 100 years, and over. Annual. National.

Between 1953 and 2021, the death rate of the United Kingdom fluctuated between a high of 12.2 deaths per 1,000 people in 1962 and a low of 8.7 in 2011. From 2011 onwards, the death rate creeped up slightly and, in 2020, reached 10.3 deaths per 1,000 people. In 2021, the most recent year provided here, the death rate was ten, a decline from 2020 but still higher than in almost every year in the twenty-first century. The recent spike in the death rate corresponds to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, with the first cases recorded in early 2020. Most deaths since 1918 in 2020 In 2020, there were around 689,600 deaths in the United Kingdom, the highest in more than a century. Although there were fewer deaths in 2021, at almost 667,500, this was still far higher than in recent years. When looking at the weekly deaths in England and Wales for this time period, two periods stand out for reporting far more deaths than usual. The first period was between weeks 13 and 22 of 2020, which saw two weeks in late April report more than 20,000 deaths. Excess deaths for the week ending April 17, 2020, were 11,854 and 11,539 for the following week. Another wave of deaths occurred in January 2021, when there were more than 18,000 deaths per week between weeks three and five of that year. Improvements to life expectancy slowing Between 2020 and 2022, life expectancy in the United Kingdom was approximately 82.57 years for women and 78.57 years for men. Compared with life expectancy in 1980/82, this marked an increase of around six years for women and almost eight years for men. Despite these long-term developments, improvements to life expectancy have been slowing in recent years and have even declined since 2017/19. As of 2023, the country with the highest life expectancy in the World was Switzerland at 84.2 years, followed by Japan at 84.1 years, and then by Spain at 84 years.

Period and cohort mortality rates (qx) for England and Wales using the principal projection by single year of age 0 to 100.

Content: Human log-mortality-rates by Country, Year, Gender and Age

Mortality = min(1, deaths / exposure),

Zero-mortality or missing values are filled with the average mortality rate per year and gender.

Variables and values:

Year: 1950 to 2016

Age: 0 to 100

Gender: "Female", "Male"

Country:

- CHE: Switzerland

- DEUT: Germany (DEUTE+DEUTW, years 1956+)

-- DEUTE: East Germany

-- DEUTW: West Germany

- DNK: Denmark

- ESP: Spain

- FRATNP: France

- ITA: Italia (-2014)

- JPN: Japan

- POL: Poland (1958+)

- USA: United States of America

Acknowledgements

Source for deaths and exposures: www.mortality.org

2018 2020, county-level U.S. heart disease death rates. Dataset developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention.Create maps of U.S. heart disease death rates by county. Data can be stratified by age, race/ethnicity, and sex.Visit the CDC/DHDSP Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke for additional data and maps. Atlas of Heart Disease and StrokeData SourceMortality data were obtained from the National Vital Statistics System. Bridged-Race Postcensal Population Estimates were obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics. International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes: I00-I09, I11, I13, I20-I51; underlying cause of death.Data DictionaryData for counties with small populations are not displayed when a reliable rate could not be generated. These counties are represented in the data with values of '-1.' CDC/DHDSP excludes these values when classifying the data on a map, indicating those counties as 'Insufficient Data.'Data field names and descriptionsstcty_fips: state FIPS code + county FIPS codeOther fields use the following format: RRR_S_aaaa (e.g., API_M_35UP)  RRR: 3 digits represent race/ethnicity    All - Overall    AIA - American Indian and Alaska Native, non-Hispanic    API - Asian and Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic    BLK - Black, non-Hispanic    HIS - Hispanic    WHT - White, non-Hispanic  S: 1 digit represents sex    A - All    F - Female    M - Male  aaaa: 4 digits represent age. The first 2 digits are the lower bound for age and the last 2 digits are the upper bound for age. 'UP' indicates the data includes the maximum age available and 'LT' indicates ages less than the upper bound. Example: The column 'BLK_M_65UP' displays rates per 100,000 black men aged 65 years and older.MethodologyRates are calculated using a 3-year average and are age-standardized in 10-year age groups using the 2000 U.S. Standard Population. Rates are calculated and displayed per 100,000 population. Rates were spatially smoothed using a Local Empirical Bayes algorithm to stabilize risk by borrowing information from neighboring geographic areas, making estimates more statistically robust and stable for counties with small populations. Data for counties with small populations are coded as '-1' when a reliable rate could not be generated. County-level rates were generated when the following criteria were met over a 3-year time period within each of the filters (e.g., age, race, and sex).At least one of the following 3 criteria:At least 20 events occurred within the county and its adjacent neighbors.ORAt least 16 events occurred within the county.ORAt least 5,000 population years within the county.AND all 3 of the following criteria:At least 6 population years for each age group used for age adjustment if that age group had 1 or more event.The number of population years in an age group was greater than the number of events.At least 100 population years within the county.More Questions?Interactive Atlas of Heart Disease and StrokeData SourcesStatistical Methods