2024 U.S. Top Causes of Death by Age Group, Preliminary

COVID drops off the top ten, but others have worsened

Jul 26, 2025

As 6 months have passed since the end of 2024, the censoring of external causes of death information in CDC WONDER (the main CDC public database system) has ceased. Therefore, I feel comfortable in putting together a preliminary ranking table for causes of death in the U.S. for 2024.

There are still some issues with the data, and the finalized rates will likely change, but probably not by large amounts.

This is using the Underlying Cause of Death — the one driving cause of death, the main cause of which only one is listed on each death certificate. There are contributing causes of death information in the database (up to 20 on death certificates), but I’m not using that information in this post.

Ranking Causes of Death 2018-2024, Count

While COVID has dropped out of the top 10 in count for cause of death, it is still substantial. As of today, over 31,000 COVID deaths were recorded in 2024. That was enough to get it ranked #15.

In 2024, causes ranked higher than COVID were: Flu/pneumonia, hypertension, Parkinson’s, and septicemia. You will see below that most of these deaths were among the old.

Rate is more important than count, but most people are more comfortable with count than rate.

Note in particular, these increases:

Stroke (148K → 167K)
Accidents (167K → 197K)

The trend for stroke is a bit odd, going up and down, which will be a bit more clear in the rate table.

For accidents, you need to remember that category includes accidental causes such as drowning, motor vehicle accidents, falls, and drug overdoses. The type of accidental deaths differ quite a bit by age and sex, and those have had very different trends over this period.

Ranking Causes of Death 2018-2024, Age-Adjusted Death Rates

With the table of rates, some of the changes are a bit more clear.

Accidental deaths may have fallen between 2023 and 2024, but they are still quite a bit higher than in pre-pandemic years.

Stroke deaths peaked in the peak COVID year of 2021, came down for a couple years, and look to have risen again. Something disturbing is happening there.

An explanation of age-adjusted death rates is here:

Mortality Basics with Meep: Age-Adjusted Death Rates v. Crude Death Rates for U.S. 1968-2020

Ranking Tables for 2024 Causes of Death by Age, U.S., Count

When one splits out the ranking of causes of death by age groups, one notes that the overall ranking table is dominated by the deaths of the elderly. Heart disease and cancer are the top two overall, and the top two for those over age 45.

Accidents get in at number three because it’s such a significant cause of death across all ages, though the type of accident differs so much by age. For toddlers, drowning is a top accidental cause of death. For schoolage children, motor vehicle accident deaths are more common. For young adults, drug overdoses and motor vehicle accidents are more prominent (as well as doing other stupid things). For the elderly, it’s falls and drowning in bathtubs.

But then we get to stroke again, which is dominated by the elderly, but this cause of death has been increasing in rate/incidence at younger ages. Again, something going on here.

Ranking Tables for 2024 Causes of Death by Age, U.S., Rate

While we usually quote rates in a per 100,000 people per year, for this table I displayed it in percentage terms. I think people understand the magnitude of percentages better than a per 100,000.

Especially since I put the total death rate for each age group across the top. You can see how the rate climbs rapidly with age — and how infant mortality is at about the same level as middle-aged adults.

For what it’s worth, the top 10 causes of death represent about 70 - 80% of the deaths for each age group (it differs by the age group).

You can see, as well, that sometimes the rate can be the same for a cause and be at very different rankings. Take a look at the rate for accidental deaths across the age groups, starting at ages 35-44. For the next group up, the rate is about the same, but the ranking is notably lower, having been displaced by cancer and heart disease.

The accidental causes of death increase with increasing age (mainly due to deaths from falls), but they decrease in ranking, because of the rapid rise of natural causes of death with increasing age.