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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
US death rate dropped back to pre-Covid levels in 2024, CDC report says | |
By Deidre McPhillips, CNN | |
Updated: | |
12:01 AM EDT, Wed September 10, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
The death rate in the United States returned to pre-pandemic levels in | |
2024 as Covid-19 fell out of the top 10 leading causes of death, | |
according to a published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease | |
Control and Prevention. | |
Covid-19 quickly rose to the third leading cause of death in the US in | |
the first two years of the pandemic, pushing the age-adjusted death | |
rate up to a peak of about 880 deaths for every 100,000 people in 2021. | |
The overall US death rate has fallen about 18% since then, and last | |
year’s 4% drop brought the US death rate down to the lowest it’s | |
been since 2019. | |
There were 722 deaths for every 100,000 people in the US in 2024 – | |
nearly 3.1 million deaths overall – according to the provisional, | |
age-adjusted data from the CDC. Final mortality data may change, but | |
the latest data are based on 99.9% of all 2024 death records received | |
and processed by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics as | |
of June 1, 2025. | |
Heart disease and cancer remained the leading causes of death, | |
accounting for more than 40% of all deaths. | |
And despite an , drug overdoses and other unintentional injuries were | |
the third leading cause of death in the US for the third year in a row. | |
Covid-19 was the fourth leading cause of death in 2022 and the tenth in | |
2023, according to CDC data. There were still deaths in the US last | |
year, but suicide moved up to the tenth leading cause of death – with | |
nearly 49,000 lives lost in 2024. | |
Suicide mortality reached a in the US 2022 and has decreased only | |
slightly in the years since. Millions of people have called, texted, or | |
sent chats to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline since mid-2022; about a | |
tenth of those individuals who reached were routed to a , but the Trump | |
administration ended that service in July. | |
Death rates decreased for most age groups in 2024, the new CDC report | |
shows, but held steady for children ages 5 to 14 and for infants. | |
Infant mortality had been trending down in the US for decades before , | |
and the new CDC report shows that the infant mortality rate has still | |
not recovered. Nearly 20,000 babies died before they turned 1 in 2024 | |
– about 5.5 deaths for every 1,000 infants. In August, the | |
Mississippi health department declared a over rising infant mortality | |
rates in the state. | |
Age-adjusted death rates decreased for all race and ethnicity groups in | |
2024 but vast disparities remain. Rates were highest among the Black | |
population, with more 924 deaths for every 100,000 Black people in the | |
US – 28% higher than the overall rate. | |
Deaths decreased among both men and women in the US in 2024, but the | |
rate was significantly lower among women than it was for men. | |
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