COVID-19 drops to tenth leading cause of death in the US

U.S. death rates fell last year for all age groups compared with 2022, federal health officials said Thursday.

Here’s what Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed:

– COVID-19 fell to the tenth leading cause of death. At the beginning of the pandemic, coronavirus was the third leading cause of death in the country. Dropped to fourth place in 2022.

— The leading causes of death were heart disease, cancer and a category of injuries that includes gunshot deaths and drug overdoses.

— There were nearly 3.1 million deaths last year in the U.S., down from 3.3 million in 2022. For many years before the pandemic, deaths generally rose from year to year, in part because the country’s population grows. COVID-19 has accelerated this trend, making 2021 the deadliest in US history in 3.4 million deaths. But the number knocked down in 2022 as the pandemic subsides.

— Death rates by race and ethnicity have decreased for all groups, although disparities remain. Because certain populations are younger or older than others, scientists use age-adjusted death rates to compare groups. These age-adjusted death rates were lowest among multiracial people and Asian Americans, and highest among black people.

The CDC’s provisional data is based on information from death certificates collected so far. Final data is expected later this year.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. AP is solely responsible for all content.