Mortality Posts and Resources: 2024 Update
Life expectancy, cause of death, videos, and podcasts!
This is a work in progress, and I will be pinning it at all my places (Twitter, substack, LinkedIn) to make it easy to find.
I have written various resources over the years, and I will be returning to this post to add through 2024.
This is intended not to organize all my mortality-related posts, but more of the core trend, definitional, and conceptual posts. Some may just be of-the-moment and not make this post.
High-Level Trends and Concepts
U.S. mortality video series covering 2020-2022:
Part 1: Video: U.S. Mortality Through the Pandemic, All Causes and by Age Group, Provisional through 2022
Part 2: Video: U.S. Mortality Through the Pandemic, part 2 -- Differences by State
Part 3: Video: U.S. Mortality Trends 2020-2022 part 3: Major Categories of Death
Part 4: Video: U.S. Mortality Trends 2020-2022 part 4: COVID
Part 5: Video: U.S. Mortality Trends 2020-2022 part 5: Historical trajectories for Causes of Death 1999-2022
Part 6: Video: U.S. Mortality Trends 2020-2022 part 6: Heart Disease and Cancer
Part 7: Video: U.S. Mortality Trends 2020-2022 part 7: Other Physiological Causes of Death
Part 8: Video: U.S. Mortality Trends 2020-2022 part 8: External causes of death
Older video on mortality trend in pandemic through 2021
May 2022: U.S. Mortality Trends Through the Pandemic – this was a talk I gave originally at an actuarial conference, and I adapted it for a YouTube video:
Life expectancy
Dec 2022: Merry Christmas! Have Some Finalized 2021 U.S. Mortality Stats!
Sep 2022: U.S. life expectancy fell almost 1 year (again) in 2021
Apr 2022: 2021 U.S. Mortality News Explainer: Life Expectancy, Death Rates, and More
Jun 2021: Mortality with Meep: U.S. Life Expectancy Fell 2.4% in 2020, and Death Rates Increased 16.1%
Jul 2021: Mortality Basics with Meep: Median, Mode, and Mean Age at Death and Life Expectancy
All-Cause Mortality Rates
Jul 2021: Mortality Basics with Meep: Age-Adjusted Death Rates v. Crude Death Rates for U.S. 1968-2020
Jun 2021: Mortality with Meep: U.S. Life Expectancy Fell 2.4% in 2020, and Death Rates Increased 16.1%
Apr 2020: Mortality with Meep: Major U.S. Mortality trends 1955-2017
Sept 2019: Mortality with Meep: Some Mortality Trends in the Storyline Game – that had some interesting results.
Actuarial concepts
Feb 2019: Mortality with Meep: Cohort vs. Period Mortality Tables
Jan 2019: Mortality with Meep: Death Distributions and Survival Probability
Dec 2018: Mortality with Meep: q_x – UPDATED WITH CONTENT FROM STU
Excess Mortality
Jan 2023: Preliminary look at 2022 U.S. Total Mortality – Continuing Excess Mortality
Nov 2021: A Deeper Dive into Increased Deaths by Race/Ethnicity and Geographic Patterns, U.S., 2020-2021
Apr 2021: Mortality with Meep: Ranking the States (and NYC and DC) by Excess Mortality
Jan 2021: Mortality with Meep: Excess Mortality in California, Texas, and Florida by Race/Ethnicity
Jan 2021: Mortality with Meep: Excess Mortality in New York and New York City
Jan 2021: Mortality with Meep: Total U.S. Excess Mortality in 2020, by Race and Ethnicity
Age Groups
Children — Age 1-17:
Young Adults — Age 18-39: approximately the Millennials in 2020-2021
2023: Millennial 2022 U.S. Mortality: Drug Overdoses Still Dominate
2022: Part 1 and Part 2, plus the podcast
Middle Agers — Age 40-59: approximately Gen X
Young Seniors — Age 60-79: approximately Boomers
Old Seniors — Age 80+: mainly Silent Generation (as older generations are mostly dead at this point) –
Cause of Death
Ranking by Cause of Death
May 2024: 2022 Top Causes of Death in the U.S. by Age Group and Sex, Finalized
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
Apr 2021: Mortality with Meep: Top Causes of Death in the United States in 2020
June 2017: Mortality Monday: Cause of Death, 2014 — I actually get into detailed cause of death here
COVID
Jan 2023: Was COVID a top cause of death for children?
Jan 2023: How Many COVID Deaths Have There Been in the United States?
Dec 2022: Ranking the states by COVID age-adjusted death rates
Sep 2021: Spanish flu v. COVID-19: Comparing the Numbers and Forgetting the Lessons
Heart disease
Jul 2021: Mortality with Meep: Cause of Death Trend — Heart Disease — 1999-2020
Cancer
March 2024: Colorectal Cancer: Top Cancer With Concerning Trend in Younger Ages
Feb 2024: Cancer Death Rates by Race/Ethnicity, U.S. 1968-2023
Feb 2024: Cancer Death Rates by Age and Gender for the U.S., 1968-2023
Feb 2024: Top Cancer Types: By Crude Death Rate, 1968-2023
Dec 2022: Movember 2022: Prostate Cancer – Geography and Race/Ethnicity
Aug 2021: Mortality with Meep: Cause of Death Trend — Cancer — 1999-2020
Feb 2020: Mortality with Meep: Cancer Statistics — an Introduction
Drug Overdoses
July 2023: Mortality Quick Take: Drug Overdoses At Their Worst in 2022
Nov 2022: Movember 2022: Men and Drug Overdoses (and Giving Tuesday!)
Mar 2022: Drug Overdoses, Part 1: High-Level Trends, 1999-2020
Mar 2022: Drug Overdose Deaths, Part 2: U.S. Age-Related Trends 1999-2020 with Provisional Results in 2021
Mar 2022: Drug Overdose Deaths, Part 3: Geographical Differences for 2019 and 2020
Jul 2021: Mortality with Meep: Huge Increase in Death by Drug Overdose in 2020
April 2017: Mortality Monday: Huge Heroin Death Increases
Alcohol-related deaths
Mar 2022: Dead is dead: Increased Alcohol-Related Deaths, U.S., 2020-2021
Mar 2022: Alcohol-related deaths, part 2: Geographical Differences for 2019 and 2020
Suicide
Nov 2022: Read the News with Meep: On Suicide Trends by Race (and Sex) in 2021 (and Earlier) — also explains how I think through reading through the news
Nov 2022: Movember 2022: The Sex Gap in Suicide
Sep 2022: World Suicide Prevention Day: U.S. Suicide Trend Update through 2021
May 2022: U.S. Gun Deaths are Mostly Suicides, not Homicides
Jan 2022: Suicide: Trends, 1968-2020, and Provisional Counts Through June 2021
Nov 2021: Movember Fundraising: Men and Suicide
Jul 2017: Mortality Monday: Suicide — Rates
July 2017: Mortality Monday: Suicide — the Absolute Numbers
Homicide
Feb 2022: Homicide: Trends, 1968-2020, and Provisional Counts Through June 2021
Feb 2022: The Geography of Homicide — States, Base Rates, Increases, and Correlations
Motor Vehicle Accidents
Jun 2023: U.S. Motor Vehicle Accident Deaths: Seasonal Patterns and June 2023 Update
Mar 2022: Motor Vehicle Accident Deaths: High-Level Trends, 1968-2020, Part 1
Mar 2022: Motor Vehicle Accident Deaths, Part 2: Age-Related Trends with Provisional Results in 2021
Mar 2022: Motor Vehicle Accident Deaths, Part 3: Geographical Differences, 2019 vs 2020
May 2017: Mortality Monday: All About Traffic Deaths!
Other accidental causes
Aug 2023: Lightning Strikes Twice: Follow-up on Lightning Deaths
Jul 2022: The Death of Ivana Trump: Falls are Dangerous for Seniors
May 2022: Summer Season Warning: Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning (Plus Drowning Mortality Trends)
Podcasts
STUMP — Death and Taxes
This is my podcast, hosted through substack, but also available through iTunes and Apple Podcasts. (Other services may have it, but I haven’t checked).
Not all the episodes are death-related, so here are the main mortality-related episodes:
Nov 2023: Movember 2023 - Current Status and Trends
Oct 2023: The Shape of U.S. Mortality, 1900-2018
Sept 2023: Fight Against Excess Mortality: the Insurance Collaboration to Save Lives
Jun 2023: Lightning Strike Deaths
May 2023: Walking Around Cemeteries (about drowning deaths)
May 2023: Mortality Trends and Cognitive Biases
Apr 2023: Danger! Fire, Hurricanes, Drowning, and More
Mar 2023: Kidney Disease Deaths, the IBM PCjr, and My Aunt Pat
Feb 2023: Ash Wednesday 2023: More on Years of Life Lost
Jan 2023: More on COVID as a top cause of death for children
Jan 2023: Podcast Look at 2022 Excess Mortality
Nov 2022: Movember 2022: Men and Suicide
Nov 2022: Movember and Prostate Cancer Mortality Trends
Nov 2022: 2021 Provisional U.S. Population Mortality
Oct 2022: Geeking Out: Life Insurance and Mortality Experience Studies
Sep 2022: Advice on the CDC 2021 Life Expectancy Report
Aug 2022: Looking at Recent Mortality Increases — and Expectations for the Future
Jul 2022: Millennial Massacre Overview
Apr 2022: Death and Data
Mar 2022: Death the Dickensian Way
Videos
Mortality with Meep
My core video playlist of mortality-related videos, containing all the mortality videos.
Playlist link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4dhKH5_-eXeUW3w3aTgdWf3hB2C5tGX8
Working with WONDER
In this video playlist, I demonstrate how to use the CDC WONDER death databases (finalized and provisional) and how to interpret some of the numbers one can extract from the system.
Some of the videos address COVID, but it doesn’t only look at 2020-2022 results. Some of the videos demonstrate getting information from older years (1999-2019, for example), aggregating by age, year, sex, etc.
Playlist link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4dhKH5_-eXdiKHfNqOeTD_ERibjnj_IQ