Coronavirus falls to 10th leading cause of death in the US

COVID-19, which has long been one of the top five causes of death in the United States, has dropped to 10th in 2023, according to preliminary data.

More than 3 million people died in the United States in 2023, but the mortality rate was 6.1% lower than in 2022, and COVID-19 deaths were 68.9% lower, reported Farida Ahmad, MPH, of the CDC's Vital Statistics Division at the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, and colleagues. in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

“This is a pretty dramatic change,” Ahmad said. Medpage TodayHe added that, although preliminary, this is the first comprehensive study of data for 2023. Ahmad warned that “this is not the end of COVID-19” and said health workers still needed to exercise extreme caution.

Related JAMA ViewpointThe authors concluded that COVID-19 peaked in 2020 and 2021 and became the third leading cause of deaths, the 4th It will rank 10th in 2022 and drop to 10th in 2023. Per 100,000 population, COVID-19 deaths will be 85 in 2020 (350,831 total), 104.1 in 2021 (416,893 total), 44.5 in 2022 (186,552 total), and 11.9 in 2023 (49,928 total).

The researchers reported that COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death for 5.7% of all deaths in 2022, decreasing to just 1.6% in 2023, although COVID-19 mortality rates for people aged 85 and older were still higher than other groups.

“It's good news that COVID-19 has dropped to 10th place… but we must remember that it remains one of the leading causes of death,” Ahmad said, noting that the leading causes of death have “generally remained pretty stable.”

The top 10 causes of death in 2023 are heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory tract disease, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, kidney disease, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and COVID-19, with suicide, influenza and pneumonia just outside the top 10.

Heart disease and cancer have consistently been the top two causes of death, the researchers wrote. Over the past five years, heart disease has been the cause of death in 161.5 to 173.8 cases per 100,000 people. Cancer has ranged from 141.8 to 146.6 cases per 100,000 people.

Ahmad said: Increased alcohol intake Suicide, drug use during the pandemic, and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, which are linked to excessive alcohol consumption, remain in the top 10, but other causes are returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Unintentional injuries, including drug overdoses, have fallen in the rankings during the pandemic, but the number of injuries is still increasing, dropping the category back to its pre-pandemic position of third place.

Becky Smullin Dawson, PhD, MPH, of Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, also pointed to the prevalence of unintentional injuries, saying, “It almost goes without saying that a lot of people are dying from drug overdoses.”

Dawson also said: Medpage Today He said preliminary data showed that “the mortality impact of the pandemic appears to have ended” and that the decline in COVID-19 deaths was “testament to the development of vaccines and therapeutics that effectively prevent and treat severe disease.”

The National Center for Health Statistics National Vital Statistics System tracks death certificate data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, including cause of death marked with an ICD-10 code. Cause of death is determined by the underlying cause of death, defined as the disease or condition that triggered the chain of events that led to death.

Regarding limitations, the authors noted that the data are preliminary, the timeliness of death certificate data may vary by jurisdiction, and there is the possibility of racial misclassification.