2018-2021 Cause of Death Ranking Tables by Sex and Age Group, United States
Yes, they can be quite different, by count and rate
This took me a little bit to put together, but after this recent post on race and sex gaps in life expectancy, and especially showing the sex gap was larger than the race gap, I should start doing some more detailed mortality trend breakouts this year.
Comparing male and female mortality trends is fairly key — as you will see below, there have been some very large differences in mortality, by level and by cause.
[If you are receiving this post via email, you may need to click through to get to the full post - email systems cut off the full post. There will be tables for 2018-2021, so if it cuts off before 2021, you’ll know - come to substack!]
High-level comparison
What may help to compare while you look at the detailed tables below is the top 10 causes of death for 2018-2021, for the entire country, just the counts. I covered this in a video in this post. But here’s the table for convenience:
Unsurprisingly, most of these causes of death are going to be how the oldest people die. Below, I will be splitting this out by major age groups, which will have very different profiles for children, young adults, middle-aged adults, and seniors.
Pre-pandemic mortality patterns
For each grouping, I will have the top cause of death ranking as I’ve done in prior posts. I’ll link to related posts at the very bottom of this post.
You will notice I colored specific causes of death, as these specific causes of death I’ve done some specific analysis on. That does not mean other causes are insignificant in their trends.
I will be digging into some others, like Diabetes and Alzheimers, further in the year, though I’m not highlighting them in these specific tables. I may do further tables where I highlight those causes.
2018
Note: 2018 was a bad flu year, in January 2018. So flu/pneumonia deaths were higher this year than in 2019, which was a really boring mortality year.
Males
2018 Male Counts
2018 Male Rates
Note: the Male-to-Female Ratio at the top is to compare the rates of male mortality to female mortality for the same ages.
Note what I call the fatal stupidity period, ages 15 - 34, where top causes of death for males are accidents, suicide, and homicide, and mortality for males are over 100% higher than for females.
Females
2018 Female Counts
2018 Female Rates
Check out the fatal stupidity period (Ages 15 - 34) here — for ages 15-24 for females, accidents, suicide, and homicide are also the top three causes for death, but the rates are much lower.
Note: “Accidents” include not only causes such as motor vehicle accidents and drowning, but also drug overdoses.
For ages 25-34, you can see that cancer is the second-highest cause of death for females.
2019
2019 was boring, mortality-wise. I like comparing everything else against 2019.
Something to look for: see where flu/pneumonia falls in these ranking tables against 2018. But it’s more about the rates and counts than the rank itself.
Males
2019 Male Counts
2019 Male Rates
Females
2019 Female Counts
2019 Female Rates
Again, remember the male-to-female ratios of death rates.
Pandemic mortality patterns, finalized data
I am showing you only 2020 and 2021 here, and not 2022, as I’m missing data for the “external causes” [homicide, suicide, accidents] for 4 months at this point.
The database I use from the CDC, CDC WONDER, has finalized the mortality data through 2021. But even with that, you can see some really interesting differences in the patterns by sex.
2020
The initial spike of COVID deaths (and other “excess” deaths - usually recorded as heart disease deaths) occurred in April 2020. COVID didn’t hit the entire country for the entire year — that would wait til 2021… and then there was an issue of differential aspects by age.
There were effects on the “external causes”, too — keep an eye on that “stupid period”.
Males
2020 Male Counts
You can see I wanted COVID to really stand out.
2020 Male Rates
Females
2020 Female Counts
Notice COVID was #2 cause of death for females age 85+, where it hadn’t been that high for males.
2020 Female Rates
2021
Males
2021 Male Counts
2021 Male Rates
Females
2021 Female Counts
Check out how far down COVID fell as a cause of death…
2021 Female Rates
I wonder about this. COVID death rates for age 85+ females dropped. Was this the result of older women in nursing homes dying in the first 2020 wave?
Spreadsheet with Data and Tables
Here is the spreadsheet with all the data draws, plus the tables above, in case you want to do something with them yourself.
There are many things going on with these causes of death, by age group & sex, and I will be exploring some of these trends in posts to come.
Related Posts
Jan 2023: Top Causes of Death, US, 2018-2021
Jan 2023: Top Causes of Death by Age Group, 2021: Finalized U.S. Stats
May 2022: Top Causes of Death for 2021: Heart Disease, Cancer, and COVID
Jan 2022: Top Causes of Death by Age Group, 2020: Death Rates
Jan 2022: Top Causes of Death by Age Group, 2020: Raw Numbers
Dear Mary Pat,
All your work is great, and appreciated. Some might not like to think about these things, so talking you up to others is rather a hard sell.
Combine that with your infuriatingly calm and reasonable tone, one I associate with an accountant telling a client, "No, you won't be doing any of those things. Because, actually, you're broke." so I don't often play your podcasts here at work....
I'm 54, and many friends and co-workers are between 45-50. A few years ago I noticed an unusual number of them had both parents still living, and had not thought seriously that that was certain to change, and soon.
One particular thought, of sons, is not wanting to predecease their mothers. That this has led to lifestyle changes for A few of these middle-aged men, is entirely a Good Thing. Still, looking at these tables... I've got some news for you, buddy.....
I have to get back to work, but the open question intrigues me. For a son's and mother's age, what are the (cumulative) chances the son will die first?
Thank you for being great.
BRetty