This comes after Covid-19 deaths started to wane.
After two years of decline, U.S. life expectancy has improved at last — but it’s still not quite up to pre-pandemic levels, according to a report released on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
In 2022, the life expectancy was 77.5 years, which marks an increase of 1.1 years from 2021. Despite this improvement, overall lifespan is still slightly below its peak of 78.9 years in 2014. America also continues to lag behind other countries: Despite spending more on health care than any other nation, the U.S. has a lower average life expectancy than the U.K. (80.90 years) and Japan (84.62 years).
This latest data comes alongside a separate CDC report that found that rates of drug overdose deaths hit record levels over the last two decades. Here’s a breakdown of these findings, plus the top 10 causes of death.
U.S. life expectancy increased in 2022
Both sexes saw roughly the same growth in life expectancy from 2021 to 2022, with males increasing from 73.5 years to 74.8 years, and females rising from 79.3 years to 80.2 years.
Researchers said this overall improvement was largely “because of decreases in mortality due to COVID-19, heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, and homicide.”
The overall death rate fell by 9 percent
There were 3.27 million total deaths in 2022 — roughly 184,374 fewer than the previous year. One of the key factors driving this was the overall drop in Covid-19 deaths, which decreased from 416,893 to 186,552 over this same period.
Virtually every racial/ethnic group saw a decline in mortality rates. American Indian/Alaskan Native males saw the biggest drop in 2022 decreasing 15.9 percent from 1,717.5 per 100,000 deaths to 1,444.1 per 100,000.
As far as age, death rates decreased for almost every group — except among children, which it marks a concerning trend. Data showed that infant mortality in the U.S. rose by 3.1 percent. “In 2022, 20,553 deaths occurred in children younger than age 1 year, which was 633 more infant deaths than in 2021,” researchers found. They pointed to “significant” increases in bacterial infections in newborns and maternal complications as primary causes.
The leading causes of death in 2022
The two leading causes of death stayed the same — heart disease was the top killer in 2022 followed by cancer.
But there were a few notable shifts: Unintentional injuries or accidents overtook Covid-19 as the third leading cause of death and drug overdoses account for a significant share of these fatalities. In 2022 alone, there were 107,941 opioid deaths. This is part of a larger trend: From 2002 to 2022, these deaths “nearly quadrupled” from 8.2 percent to 32.6 percent.
Check out the full list below:
- Heart disease
- Cancer
- Unintentional injuries, including overdoses
- Covid-19
- Stroke
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases
- Alzheimer disease
- Diabetes
- Kidney disease
- Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
If you want to get proactive about extending your life expectancy, we’ve compiled resources on increasing longevity, including foods that help fight cancer and promote heart health.
