Leading Causes of Death in the United States

According to the CDC's mortality data for the United States, there were 3,072,666 total recorded deaths. The 10 leading causes of death accounted for 70.9% of all total deaths.

CDC Mortality Data: Top 10 Leading Causes of Death in the U.S.

Rank	Cause of Death	Number of Deaths	Percentage of Total Deaths
1	Heart disease	683,491	22.2%
2	Cancer (Malignant neoplasms)	619,876	20.2%
3	Accidents (Unintentional injuries)	197,449	6.4%
4	Stroke (Cerebrovascular diseases)	166,852	5.4%
5	Chronic lower respiratory diseases	145,643	4.7%
6	Alzheimer's disease	116,022	3.8%
7	Diabetes mellitus	94,445	3.1%
8	Kidney disease (Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome)	55,081	1.8%
9	Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis	52,274	1.7%
10	Suicide (Intentional self-harm)	48,824	1.6%
—	All other causes (residual)	892,709	29.1%

Key Takeaways

• Heart disease and cancer remain the dominant causes of death in the U.S., together accounting for 42.4% of all fatalities.
• COVID-19, which was previously among the top 10 leading causes of death, dropped to 15th as overall mortality rates from the virus declined.
• Suicide returned to the top 10 list, replacing COVID-19 as the 10th leading cause.