In the United States alone, there were almost 417,000 COVID-19 deaths in 2021. A year afterward, in 2022, there were around 187,000, and a year after that, in 2023, there were about 50,000.
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a massive surge in mortality in the U.S., resulting in reduced life expectancy. But today, life expectancy is recovering, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). After dropping to 76.4 years in 2021, it increased by 1.1 years in 2022 (the CDC reported in March) and by 0.9 years in 2023 (the CDC reported in December), recovering to almost pre-pandemic levels.
The consecutive rebounds in 2022 and 2023 are thanks to declines in the age-adjusted death rates of almost all leading causes of death, from heart disease to COVID-19. The rebound in 2023 also coincides with a decreasing rate of drug deaths, according to another recent report by the CDC, indicating a downward trend in fatal overdoses.
Read More: Humans Have Altered Their Life Expectancy in Extraordinary Ways
Life Expectancy in the U.S.
According to the CDC, the life expectancy was 78.4 years in 2023, an increase from 77.5 years in 2022 and 76.4 years in 2021. Listed as life expectancies at birth, each of these estimates is an evaluation of the average number of years a baby born in 2023, 2022, or 2021 could expect to live based on the death rates from those years.
Consistently calculated by the CDC, these life expectancies are a valuable metric for assessing the overall mortality rate of a population, though it is important to note that they account for the overall mortality rate in a particular year (and thus cannot account for future medical advances or declines).
In 2023, around 3,091,000 people died in the U.S., while totals of about 3,280,000 and 3,464,000 died in 2022 and 2021. Though the life expectancies derived from these deaths are still shy of the pre-pandemic level of 78.8 years (and the previous peak of 78.9 years), life expectancy is inching toward pre-pandemic levels and improving significantly due to consecutive declines in death rates among the top 10 leading causes.
The Top Causes of Death
In all three years, the top 10 leading causes of death were heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, stroke, chronic lower respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and COVID-19. Between 2021 and 2022, the death rates of all 10 declined, save for cancer, and between 2022 and 2023, they declined again, save for kidney disease.
In all three years — 2021, 2022, and 2023 — the leading cause of death was heart disease. In 2021, heart disease caused 173.8 deaths per 100,000 people in the U.S., adjusted for the age of the population, while in 2022 and 2023, it caused 167.2 and 162.1 deaths, respectively. That represents a 3.8 percent decline in age-adjusted heart disease death rates between 2021 and 2022 and another 3.1 percent decline between 2022 and 2023.
Cancer followed in all three years, then unintentional injury in 2022 and 2023. Between 2021 and 2022, age-adjusted cancer death rates declined by 2.9 percent, while age-adjusted unintentional injury death rates declined by 1.1 percent. And while cancer death rates stayed around the same between 2022 and 2023, unintentional injury death rates declined by an additional 2.7 percent.
According to the CDC, some of the most significant changes occurred with COVID-19 in all three years, with an age-adjusted death rate that decreased by 57.3 percent between 2021 and 2022 and by another 73.3 percent between 2022 and 2023. In 2021, COVID-19 caused 104.1 deaths per 100,000 people in the U.S., while in 2022 and 2023, it caused 44.5 and 11.9, falling from the third cause of death to the fourth in 2022 and the tenth in 2023.
Read More: Why Do Some People Live So Long?
Drug Declines
While the increases in life expectancy are largely due to the declines in the death rates of the leading causes of death, decreases in other death rates are also occurring. According to the CDC, drug overdose deaths — which are not counted in the March or December mortality reports as a leading cause of death in the U.S. — dropped between 2022 and 2023, with the age-adjusted rate of death declining by 4.0 percent, from 32.6 per 100,000 people to 31.3. This is the first decline in age-adjusted drug overdose death rates since 2018 when overdoses caused 20.7 deaths per 100,000 people.
It’s a promising trend after years of increases in overdose deaths and perhaps a positive sign for future declines.
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Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
