2023 U.S. Top Causes of Death by Age Group, Preliminary

Plus a plug for a free webinar on spreadsheet best practices this Thursday

Jul 09, 2024

First, a plug for my upcoming webinar:

The event is hosted by Microsoft MVP Danielle Stein Fairhurst, with the Event page here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7208228150768521216/

Join us to hear from Mary Pat Campbell who will showcase the methods and standards we should follow as financial modellers to reduce errors in financial models. Hosted by Danielle Stein Fairhurst, this is the next in our series of live virtual meetups for financial modellers!

When: Thursday, July 11, 5 - 6 pm Eastern Time

Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/4917185057534/WN_osAtIFbwRqO16dm3_53v7Q

I’ve colored several of the major causes of death, so that they’re easier to trace year-to-year (or category-to-category).

The most notable movement in cause of deaths in 2023 was the substantial drop in COVID deaths compared to prior years. It was still within the top 10, but only at #10.

It is difficult to gauge the movements of other causes of death by just looking at numbers of deaths in general, though, because proper comparison is done on a rate basis. And, properly, age-adjusted death rates.

Ranking Causes of Death 2018-2023, Age-Adjusted Death Rates

I will be doing a deeper dive on the different changes for some of these causes of deaths, because some are just continuing longer-term trends.

The age-adjusted death rates are collapsing a bunch of information across different age groups. In some of these cases, the movement in the rate is hiding increases in some age groups and reductions in others.

So that’s for future posts.

Let’s just look at the preliminary 2023 tables.

Ranking Tables for 2023 Causes of Death, U.S., Count

I understand this is difficult to look at. You may wish to download the spreadsheet below to look at the table in its full glory.

But notice that COVID has fallen off the ranking in top 10 for most age groups, except the very old, which is where most of the deaths have always been, and the very young, where they have low mortality rates from anything in general.

I noticed the increasing number of septicemia deaths. I may look at that a bit further, as that comes from infections.

Ranking Tables for 2023 Causes of Death, U.S., Rate

The rates are helpful in doing age-group-to-age-group comparisons. A cause of death may increase or fall in ranking compared to other causes, but the rate tells a different story when you are comparing different age groups in how the cause of death affects different age ranges. Diabetes versus strokes show different types of trajectories, for instance. Similarly, compare cancer and heart disease.