TUESDAY, July 7, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- In 2025, the overall U.S. death rate was down 4.6 percent from 2024, according to a July Vital Statistics Rapid Release report, a publication from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Farida B. Ahmad, M.P.H., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues present provisional 2025 data on U.S. mortality, based on 99.9 percent of all 2025 death records received and processed by the National Center for Health Statistics by May 10, 2026.
The researchers reported 3,094,593 deaths in the United States in 2025. The age-adjusted death rate was 811.1 and 582.9 per 100,000 population for males and females, respectively. Compared with 2024, the overall rate of 689.2 per 100,000 population was 4.6 percent lower. A decrease in the rate was seen for all age groups. Age-adjusted death rates were lowest for the multiracial non-Hispanic population and highest for the Black non-Hispanic population (187.3 and 869.0 per 100,000, respectively). Heart disease, cancer, and unintentional injuries were the leading causes of death.
"The estimated 2025 age-adjusted death rate, 689.2 per 100,000 U.S. standard population, was 4.6 percent lower than in 2024 (722.1) and was the lowest death rate recorded in the United States," the authors write.
