Movember 2025 Wrap-Up: 2024 Cause of Death Ranking Tables for Men

Thanks for all the donations!

This is coming in a little later than usual… I’ve been super-busy at work, with my chronic pain giving me some trouble as well.

But I wanted to show the final donation take (though I’m sure the Movember foundation would continue to take donations…)

I raised over $1,500 this year, which is a significant improvement over my pre-pandemic fundraising efforts.

I marked my 2024 outlier — obviously, I got much more in donations, as I asked for donations after Stuart died from prostate cancer at the end of September 2024, and Stu’s timing was impeccable for the fundraising boost. Hey, Stu always knew how to make an exit.

Since 2017, I have raised almost $20,000 for the Movember Foundation ($19,853, to be exact.)

I will keep plugging away at the Movember fundraising, not just due to Stu’s memory. I talk about my motivations here from last year:

Links to this year’s Movember posts on men’s mortality and health issues are at the bottom of this post.

But first, let a male-only cause of death ranking table for 2024. A downloadable spreadsheet is at the bottom of the post.

Ranking Causes of Death 2018-2024, Count, Males, U.S.

Back in July, I posted a similar ranking table, but for the entire population.

Just for the count, I will post the full population ranking table:

One difference jumps out at me immediately: suicide is ranked much higher for males as a cause of death than for the overall population.

In the pre-pandemic years, it had been at 8th for men…. and post-pandemic, it has been at 7th, and I do not like this trend. The numbers have increased. It’s not merely that lower-ranked causes have dropped in numbers.

I have been appalled by both the drug overdose and suicide trends, and the societal situation has not been conducive to reversing those.

Let’s take a look at the rates before I comment further.

Ranking Causes of Death 2018-2024, Rates, Males, U.S.

Looking on a age-adjusted death rate basis, suicide death rates have been fairly level for men. But that’s only recently.

That level suicide death rate is a recent high point. So yay that it seems to have leveled off in rate lately, but can that be reversed? And what about those drug overdose deaths?

On the flip side, there is also the plateauing of prostate cancer deaths. That’s another cause linked with Movember — we can see all the improvement over the years, but that has stalled.

Is that related to changes in screening recommendations, such as the ones that led President Biden’s prostate cancer not being found until it was in an advanced state?

President Biden Had Followed Bad Prostate Cancer Screening Guidelines -- Here are Better Ones

To quote myself:

Let us not try to make Medicare cheaper by having men die younger.

I’m going to drop a few more detailed ranking tables for you to ponder. But I’m not going to say much about them right now.

Ranking Causes of Death 2024, Count, by Age Group, Males, U.S.

Two causes of death I want to point out, but also note the number of deaths under each and remember this is for the entire U.S.

The 9th highest cause of death for males age 15-24 was “legal intervention” (aka “death by cop”).

But it was only 107 deaths. And among the age groups, it’s not even the one with the highest number of deaths by legal intervention:

Older men are more likely to have run-ins with the cops… but they are also more likely to die from all sorts of things.

Which brings me to the second cause of death of note: HIV/AIDS, which shows up as #8 for males age 25-34.

“Only” 317 men died of HIV/AIDS, age 25-34 in 2024. Let me show you the numbers from an earlier era: [likely an undercount]

That crude death rate is fairly hideous for such young men.

Speaking of which, let’s look at rates.

Ranking Causes of Death 2024, Rate, by Age Group, Males, U.S.

I use percentages instead of per 100K for my tables, because people have trouble with thinking about “per 100,000”.

Let’s think about that 47 per 100,000 in 1994 for HIV/AIDS deaths for men age 25-34.

That’s 0.047%.

Compare that with the current top causes of death for that age group:

“Accidents”: 0.074%, which includes traffic accidents… and drug overdoses.

Suicide: 0.028%, which is lower than the rate of HIV/AIDS deaths for men in that age group in 1994, just 30 years earlier.

It’s great to acknowledge the progress in the medical treatment of HIV/AIDS (because, not sorry, it’s not that human behavior changed.)

Another cause of death I’m keeping an eye on is stroke.

It’s not a specific Movember cause, but I’m interested in men’s health in general.

Drug overdoses and suicide are definitely a crisis for men.

That Movember has added men’s mental health as one of their core areas to support has only made me more apt to continue with my fundraising and support of the organization.

Spreadsheet

Male Underlying Cause Of Death 2024 Preliminary Stats And Ranking Age 2025 12 19

297KB ∙ XLSX file

Download

Download

2025 Movember Links

• 19 Nov 2025: International Men’s Day and the Mortality Sex Gap

• 16 Nov 2025: Podcast: Movember 2025: Continuing On

• 11 Nov 2025: Veterans and Suicide

• 7 Nov 2025: Prostate Cancer U.S. Mortality Trends Update

• 1 Nov 2025: Movember 2025: The Need Continues

• 2 Dec 2025: Giving Tuesday 2025: Movember and Bridge to Enter Advanced Math

• 27 Nov 2025: Men and Suicide

• 22 May 2025: President Biden Had Followed Bad Prostate Cancer Screening Guidelines -- Here are Better Ones