About 60 million deaths globally each year.
One-third of deaths around the world—some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day—are due to poverty-related causes.
Approximately 36 million people die each year from non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease.
Approximately 7.5 million children under the age of 5 die from malnutrition, usually brought on by not having the money to find or make food.
Among communicable diseases, both viral and bacterial, AIDS/HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria are the most common, causing millions of deaths every year.
Provisional information suggests mortality increased 17.7% in the number of deaths in 2020, an increase in the age adjusted rate of 15.9% compared with 2019, with increases in many leading causes of death.
Mortalities statistics are derived from death certificates, providing both the annual mortality burden numbers and by causes death.
Injuries and violence resulting from trauma related motor vehicle collisions, falls, drowning, extreme heat, and cold exposure, suicide, overdose, and suicide comprise nearly 8% of the deaths worldwide, affecting approximately 4.5 million people annually.
Injury related mortality is also increased among adults age 25 to 64 years.
Firearm mortality in the US increased by 45% between 2010 and 2021.
All cause mortality in the US pediatric population began increasing in 2020 due to primarily homicide, suicide, transport injuries, and drug overdoses.
Marginalized racial populations, have experienced the largest increase in mortality rates.
Suicides have been increasing since 2000.
No other high income country, except perhaps the UK, has experienced mortality increases as large as the US.
The life expectancy gap between the US and other countries widened greatly before the pandemic, and the US losses to COVID-19 were higher than in peer countries.
Suicides involving middle-aged adults increased by 44.6% between 2000 and 2019.
The US suicide great stabilized during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Homicides involving young and middle-aged adults have been increasing since 2014.
The provisional leading cause of death ranking for 2020 indicated the Covid-19 was the third leading cause of death in the US behind heart disease and cancer.
COVID-19 mortality peaked in 2021 at 104.12 per hundred thousand population and fell to 44.4 per 100,000 population in 2022 and below 1500 per 1000,000 thousand in 2023.
Age adjusted Covid-19 mortality rates peaked in 2021 at 104.12 per hundred thousand population and fell to 44.45 per hundred thousand in2022, with provisional data suggesting that these mortality rates in 2023nwere below 15 per hundred thousand.
Data from 2023 indicated shift in the top causes of death, driven largely by decreasing COVID-19 deaths.
About 30% of global deaths are from cardiovascular disease, with 40-50% due to acute myocardial infarction.
In the United States, seven chronic diseases are the causes of the 10 most common deaths: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and chronic lung, liver, and kidney diseases.
Mortality from neurologic diseases, notably, Alzheimer’s disease, have been increasing for decades, as has mortality from diabetes, likely a result of the obesity epidemic.
Among young and middle aged adults, mortality from hypertensive diseases and kidney failure has been increasing for two decades and mortality from other forms of heart disease, such as heart failure, has been increasing since 2012.
Since 2002 women age 25 to 44 years have been dying at increasing rates from pregnancy, childbirth, and the uerperium.
At least 25% of Americans die in a nursing home.
Among adults over the age of 50, approximately 11% have been predeceased by at least one of their offspring.
According to the United Nations World Population Prospects report, approximately 7,452 people die every day in the United States.
Provisional number of deaths occurring in the US among US residents in 2020 was 3,358,814, an increase of 503,976, which is 17.7%, from 2,854,838 in 2019.
A person dies in the US approximately every 12 seconds.
Mortality trends show seasonality with the number of deaths higher in the winter and lower in the summer.
The provisional leading cause of death ranking for 2020 indicated the Covid-19 was the third leading cause of death in the US behind heart disease and cancer.
Median age or death due prostate cancer is 80 years, compared with lung cancer at 72 years, and breast cancer at 68 years.
In 2019 it was estimated that 10 million people died due to cancer worldwide.
Cancer accounted for approximately two of every 10 deaths in the US in 2020.
More than 600,000 cancer deaths were projected in 2022 in the US.
About 36 million global deaths annually are due to chronic diseases.
High body-mass index (BMI) is estimated to have accounted for 4 million deaths globally in 2015, more than two thirds of which were caused by cardiovascular diseases.
Liver disease causes 2 million deaths per year worldwide.
It is estimated there between 5.7 and 8.4 million people die every year from poor quality care in low and middle income countries.
More persons age 65 years or older are dying at home.
Preventable chronic disease is responsible for most American deaths, many of which are influenced by lifestyle habits contributing to obesity.
Social isolation is now identified as a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, and increases the risk of death by 29%.
Non-communicable diseases and road injuries, account for 80% of deaths globally.
The leading causes of the higher male death rate are accidents, injuries, violence, and cardiovascular diseases.
The combination of risk factors of excess weight, physical inactivity, poor diet, and alcohol consumption account for 18.2% of cancer cases and 15.8% of cancer deaths in the United States (Rock CL).
Genetic predisposition constitutes approximately 30% of the risk for early death.
Non-communicable diseases including cancer and diabetes kill 41 million people annually.
Every year about 234,051 Americans die due to diabetes (type I or II) or diabetes-related complications, with 69,071 having it as the primary cause of death.
Vehicle crashes account for 1.35 million deaths each year globally.
In the US motor vehicle crashes and fire-arm related injuries caused four times as many deaths in children and adolescents as does cancer.
Hispanic death rate is 24% lower than whites.
Hispanics are about 50% more likely to die from diabetes or liver disease than whites.
In most regions of the world, the mortality rate is higher for adult men than for adult women; adult men develop fatal illnesses with more frequency than females.
Most smoking attributed deaths are due to cancer (34%), cardiovascular disease (32%) or respiratory disease (21%).
Heat is the most common cause of weather related deaths.
Ranking of leading causes of death in the US from 2019–2023:
Heart disease
Cancer
Unintentional injuries, and Covid
Chronic lower respiratory disease
Stroke
Alzheimer’s disease
Diabetes
Kidney disease
Influenza, and pneumonia.
Suicide
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
COVID-19 mortality peaked in 2021 at 104.12 per hundred thousand population and fell to 44.4 per 100,000 population in 2022 and below 1500 per 1000,000 thousand in 2023.
The US had the highest excess mortality attributable to COVID-19 among people younger than 75 years of age in 2021.
The US has the highest rate among the 10 OECD countries of death from self harm, which includes suicide, and the highest rate of death from assault, which includes death caused by gun violence.