Photo by Laylabird, courtesy iStockphoto
U.S. life expectancy, which dipped during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, is ticking back up, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
In December, the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics released “Mortality in the United States, 2023,” which found life expectancy at birth was 78.4 years in 2023, up from 77.5 years in 2022. Besides COVID-19, decreases in deaths from heart disease, unintentional injuries, cancer and diabetes contributed to the rise in life expectancy.
The nation’s age-adjusted death rate fell by 6% between 2022 and 2023, with age-specific death rates declining for all people ages 5 and older. Death rates declined among all racial and ethnic groups, decreasing more than 10% for Hispanic men, 13.5% for American Indian and Alaska Native women, almost 9% for Black men and nearly 7% for white men.
The 10 leading causes of death remained mostly the same. The top five causes were heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, stroke and chronic lower respiratory diseases.
COVID-19 dropped from the fourth-leading cause of death in 2022 to the 10th-leading cause in 2023. Overall, more than 3 million people died in the U.S. in 2023, nearly 189,000 fewer than the previous year.
The U.S. infant mortality rate did not change significantly between 2022 and 2023, the report found. The 10 leading causes of such deaths — including low birthweight, sudden infant death syndrome and maternal complications — accounted for about 65% of all infant deaths in the U.S. Nearly 20,150 children under age 1 died in the U.S. in 2023, with an infant mortality rate of about 560 infant deaths per 100,000 live births.
Bacterial sepsis moved from the seventh-leading cause of infant mortality to the sixth, while cord and placental complications shifted from sixth to seventh place.
Deaths related to drug overdose decline
Another new NCHS brief released in December showed a much-awaited drop in drug overdose deaths. The brief, “Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2003-2023,” reported an overall 4% decrease in such deaths following years of record highs.
But not all communities are benefiting from the overdose drop.
While drug overdose deaths declined for people ages 15 to 54, they rose for adults ages 55 and older. Such deaths also decreased among white people, but they stayed level or increased for other racial and ethnic groups. For example, overdose deaths increased from 2022 to 2023 among Black people and Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders.
Overall, drug overdose deaths were highest for American Indian and Alaska Native people.
Rates of overdose deaths linked to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl decreased by 2% between 2022 and 2023, NCHS reported, but increased for those involving cocaine and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine.
In other vital statistics from NCHS, the nation’s fertility rate — defined as the total number of births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 — declined slightly in 2023. According to a Dec. 18 update, the general U.S. fertility rate dropped from 56 births per 1,000 women in the last quarter of 2022 to 54.4 per 1,000 in the last quarter of 2023. As of the third quarter of 2024, the rate was up again slightly to 54.6 births per 1,000 women.
Data from 2023 to 2024 showed a small decrease in fertility rates among all racial groups, but a slight rise among Hispanic women.
For more information, visit www.cdc.gov/nchs.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
