National Vital Statistics System

Mortality Statistics

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

NCHS is responding to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) with new resources to help monitor and report deaths. Please visit our COVID-19 Death Data and Reporting Guidance page to stay up to date on the latest information.

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The National Vital Statistics System captures information about death from all causes from every county in the United States – about 2.8 million deaths each year – to produce timely and accurate mortality data.

National-level mortality data help track the characteristics of those who have died, monitor and make decisions about public health challenges, determine life expectancy, and compare death trends with other countries. Learn more

Age-adjusted death rate for the 10 leading causes of death in 2022: United States, 2021 and 2022

Image of leading causes of death for 2020 and 2021

1 Statistically significant decrease from 2021 to 2022 (p < 0.05).
2 Statistically significant increase from 2021 to 2022 (p < 0.05).
NOTES: A total of 3,279,857 resident deaths were registered in the United States in 2022. The 10 leading causes of death accounted for 72.3% of all U.S. deaths in 2022. Causes of death are ranked according to number of deaths. Rankings for 2021 data are not shown. Data table for Figure 4 includes the number of deaths for leading causes and the percentage of total deaths. Access data table for Figure 4.
SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, mortality data file.