How We Die

Heart disease is the leading cause of death. But is that true at every age? For women and men? Has it changed over time?
Do different causes dominate at different ages and how have those patterns changed from 1999 to 2024?

These interactive charts let you explore broad causes of death by overall rank, by age or by year, and investigate detailed subcategories.

Notes:
  • Viewing on a phone is not recommended. These charts were designed for larger screens and have not been optimized for mobile or touch interaction.
  • Deaths are from CDC/NCHS NVSS mortality data (ICD-10 underlying cause of death) in the USA from 1999 to 2024.
  • Each death is assigned a single underlying cause (the primary cause). Other contributing conditions/comorbidities are not shown here.
  • Mortality rates use CDC WONDER population estimates as denominators (deaths per 100,000).
  • “Mortality rate” is crude (per 100,000). For “All ages,” trends can be influenced by changes in the population’s age mix; use the age filter for age-specific trends.
  • ICD-10 codes are grouped into plain-language “broad causes” and detailed subcategories within each broad cause (not contributing/secondary causes).
  • Some lines may look more variable, especially for rare causes or younger ages, because small numbers can change results noticeably from year to year.
  • Deaths at ages above 100 are excluded. Deaths above 100 are rare, and including them would add a long, noisy tail and compress the main age range where most patterns live.)
  • Metrics: Death count, Share of deaths, and Mortality rate (per 100,000).
  • Interactions: click a legend item to isolate a cause; shift-click to add/remove multiple causes; click the chart area for details in a tooltip.
  • Normalize to 100% rescales percentages using only the causes currently shown (so the visible areas sum to 100% at each age/year).
    It does not allocate or redistribute deaths from hidden causes to the visible ones. That would require making speculative assumptions about which causes they should be added to.
  • Stacked area charts are inspired by Nathan Yau’s FlowingData post, Causes of Death. I adapted and extended the approach here, including some label/grouping choices that differ from the original.
Causes of Death Rankings
Broad Causes: Overall Rankings
Causes of Death by Age at Death
Broad Causes
Detailed Causes
Choose broad cause
Causes of Death over Time
Broad Causes
Detailed Causes
Choose broad cause