Death Rates, by state

Health
Written By Alysha Rashid

Southern states — led by WV, MS, and KY — have the highest death rates in the nation.

Death rates per 100,000 population, 2022

Age-adjusted

Source: CDC Wonder. 2022 data is provisional.

In 2022, the death rate in America remained higher than pre-Covid.1 Death rates in the South are stunningly high. In 2022, West Virginia and Kentucky had age-adjusted death rates nearly twice as high as New York and California. While heart disease and cancer remain the leading causes of death in the U.S., unintentional injuries are now the 3rd leading cause of death.2

Drug overdose deaths, one of these unintentional injuries, continue to skyrocket, with over 108,000 deaths in 2022. Opioid overdoses are more likely during heat waves and may surge as summers get hotter (Drug Overdose Deaths).3 Pregnancy-related deaths are about 3 times higher in the U.S. than other wealthy countries and will increase as we experience more extreme heat days (Pregnancy-related Deaths).4,5 Heat-related deaths have more than doubled since 2019 and will continue to grow with experts predicting 2024 has a 33% chance of being hotter than 2023 (Heat-related Deaths, Extreme heat days).[6] As summers get hotter, diseases such as dengue fever and Zika virus are likely to become more common in the U.S.[7],[8],[9]

Lack of health insurance contributes to these high deaths rates, and more working-age Southerners lack health insurance than non-Southern, working-age Americans (Lack of Health Insurance).[10]

  1. Life Expectancy Increases, However Suicides Up in 2022. (2023, November 29). U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2023/20231129.htm

  2. Ahmad, F. B., Cisewski, J. A., Xu, J., & Anderson, R. N. (2023). Provisional Mortality Data — United States, 2022. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 72(18). https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7218a3

  3. Ryus, C., & Bernstein, S. L. (2022). A New Syndemic: Complications of Opioid Use Disorder During a Heat Wave. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 33(3), 1671–1677. https://doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2022.0092

  4. Gunja, M. Z., Gumas, E. D., & Williams II, R. D. (2023, January 31). U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2022: Accelerating Spending, Worsening Outcomes. The Commonwealth Fund. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022 

  5. Picture of America: Heat-Related Illness Fact Sheet. (n.d.). CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/pictureofamerica/pdfs/picture_of_america_heat-related_illness.pdf

  6. 2023 was the world’s warmest year on record, by far. (2024, January 12). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; U.S. Department of Commerce. https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far

  7. Climate change: fires, floods, and infectious diseases. (2021). The Lancet Microbe, 2(9), e415. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-5247(21)00220-2

  8. Baker, R. E., Mahmud, A. S., Miller, I. F., Rajeev, M., Rasambainarivo, F., Rice, B. L., Takahashi, S., Tatem, A. J., Wagner, C. E., Wang, L.-F., Wesolowski, A., & Metcalf, C. J. E. (2021). Infectious disease in an era of global change. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 20(20). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-021-00639-z

  9. PREPARING FOR THE REGIONAL HEALTH IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE UNITED STATES. (2020). U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/docs/Health_Impacts_Climate_Change-508_final.pdf 

  10. Woolhandler, S., & Himmelstein, D. U. (2017). The Relationship of Health Insurance and Mortality: Is Lack of Insurance Deadly? Annals of Internal Medicine, 167(6), 424. https://doi.org/10.7326/m17-1403

Alysha Rashid
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Life expectancy, by state
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Drug Overdose Deaths