CDC reveals leading causes of death for the past 5 years. Here are 5 key takeaways.
A lot has changed since 2019, but when it comes to what is killing the most Americans, heart disease and cancer still top the list. That’s according to a just-released report revealing the top 10 causes of death from 2019 to 2023, which also shows the impact COVID has made over the past few years and where things stand now.
The report, published in JAMA and drawing on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, includes a few other unexpected shifts in the cause-of-death rankings. Here are five big takeaways.
1. Heart disease and cancer are still the leading causes of death
For more than 100 years, heart disease has been the number one No. 1 cause of death in the U.S, and the pandemic has done nothing to slow it down. Although rates of both heart disease and cancer have generally declined since 2009, more than 650,000 Americans have died of cardiovascular disease in each of the past five years. Similarly, cancer has long been, and remains, one of the top two leading causes of death. More than 613,000 people died from the disease last year.
The top causes of death remain “really common,” Dr. Asaf Bitton, an associate professor of medicine and health care policy at Harvard Medical School, tells Yahoo Life. “Heart disease and cancer really kill the most people.” Bitton adds that with the help of good primary care providers, many cases of conditions like heart disease and cancer could be prevented or managed.
2. COVID is claiming fewer lives
Though its fatality rate has fallen, COVID has killed more than a million people in the U.S. in a matter of just four years, according to the new research. “When COVID arrived on the scene [in 2020], it became the third-leading cause of death, which was shocking on its own,” Jodie Guest, senior vice chair of the department of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, tells Yahoo Life. Its emergence then “really shook up the leading causes of death,” Farida Ahmad, study co-author and lead mortality surveillance researcher at the CDC’s Division of Vital Statistics, tells Yahoo Life.
But by 2023, COVID had fallen to the last slot in the top 10 causes of death. That’s thanks in large part to the fact that nearly all Americans have antibodies from vaccination, prior infection or both, says Guest. However, adds Ahmad, “I would not say we’re out of the woods yet,” considering that the viral infection still killed nearly 50,000 people last year, her research estimates.
3. Deaths from drug overdoses and drinking are rising
The new report didn’t assess drug overdoses directly. However, unintentional injuries — which include overdoses — were the third-leading cause of death every year it looked at, except for 2020 and 2021, when COVID took their place. “It’s scary to see the death rate [from unintentional injuries increasing by 26%” from 2019 to 2023, “especially when that increase could be due mostly to overdose deaths,” says Guest (Ahmad agrees that they are a likely driver of this category). “That’s a really horrifying trend.”
Meanwhile, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis were the 11th leading cause of death in 2019 but had climbed to the ninth slot by 2023, with the mortality rate rising by 15% in that span of time. Researchers say that both alcoholism and chronic obesity contribute to liver disease rates, but more research is needed to determine what’s driving the uptick in deaths.
4. Deaths by suicide have fallen in the rankings
Deaths by suicide had fallen out of the top 10 leading causes of death by 2023, according to the new study. “It’s great to see suicide dropping down, and we believe it will stay below the 10th position,” says Guest, though she adds that it’s possible that some deaths by suicide may have been recorded as overdoses. Experts also note that while suicide has fallen in the rankings, the rate of deaths by suicide has not. In fact, 14.1 out of every 100,000 people died by suicide in 2023, up from 13.9 in 2019.
Still, it’s somewhat encouraging, in Bitton’s view. “If one were to look at it optimistically, following the clear behavioral and mental crisis of 2020 and 2021, in terms of the astounding number of people feeling depressed and seeking care, [the data suggests] that did not translate to a huge shift in suicide, which is good,” he says. “But there has been a bump up.”
5. Many of these deaths can be prevented or delayed
Death itself, of course, can’t be prevented forever. That said, the American Heart Association estimates that most heart disease and stroke deaths are preventable. And recent research from the American Cancer Society estimated that nearly half of all cancer deaths are due to changeable lifestyle factors. Vaccines can dramatically reduce the risk of severe infection and death from COVID or respiratory viruses like pneumococcal pneumonia and flu, or prevent HPV infections and related cancers. Healthy lifestyles reduce the risks of dying from virtually any cause, research suggests.
“If we can help a person do [several] things — not smoke, exercise, not drink too much alcohol, control their weight and blood pressure, get some cancer screenings on a regular basis — we’re well on our way to increasing life expectancy by like a decade,” says Bitton. “Those are the big things that will determine whether you’ll be able to be around for your grandkids or a big life event. None of those things are easy to do, but that’s the stuff that matters most if what you’re after is living a longer and functional life.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911 or the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 800-273-8255, or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
