Mortality trends in the United States in recent years including provisional 2024 data

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in greater mortality in the United States. We sought to evaluate ongoing rates of all-cause and of top individual causes of mortality using provisional 2024 mortality data.

Data on all-cause and top individual causes of mortality in the United States between 2018 and provisional 2024 estimates, using Age-Adjusted and Crude Mortality rates (with 95 % Confidence Intervals), were obtained from the publicly available Center for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research data set.

All-cause age-adjusted mortality rates 100,000 from 2018 and provisional 2024 data were 723.6 (722.8724.5), 715.3 (714.4716.1), 835.4 (834.5836.3), 879.7 (878.7880.6), 798.8 (797.9799.9), 750.5 (749.7751.4), and 742.6 (741.8743.5), with provisional 2024 rates remaining above pre-pandemic baseline. Mortality attributed to COVID-19 infection peaked in 2021 as the 3rd leading cause of death, dropping to the 4th, 11th, and 15th leading cause of death in 2022, 2023, and provisional 2024 data respectively.

All-cause mortality rates in provisional 2024 data in the United States remain above pre-pandemic baseline. Mortality from COVID dropped from the 3rd leading cause of death in 2021 to the 15th leading cause of death in provisional 2024 data.