WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report revealed that Americans continued to live longer in 2025, as the nation's death rate fell to its lowest level ever recorded, highlighting the country's continued recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and fewer deaths from several leading causes.
The report from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics estimates that 3,094,593 people died in the United States in 2025. The age-adjusted death rate declined 4.6% from 2024 to 689.2 deaths per 100,000 people, marking the lowest level since the federal government began tracking the data. Death rates fell across every age group and among both men and women, contributing to another increase in U.S. life expectancy.
Despite the overall improvement, disparities remained. Black Americans continued to have the nation's highest overall mortality rate, although it improved slightly. Meanwhile, death rates increased among American Indian and Alaska Native populations, as well as Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander populations.
Heart disease remained the leading cause of death in 2025, claiming nearly 695,000 lives, followed by cancer with nearly 623,000 deaths. Unintentional injuries, including drug overdoses, ranked third. Although overdose deaths remained high at about 70,000, preliminary CDC data suggests they declined sharply from the previous year. Health experts said that this reduction was a major factor behind the nation's lower overall death rate.
One notable exception was influenza and pneumonia. Deaths from these illnesses rose to 56,500 in 2025, up from 48,100 in 2024. CDC researchers attributed the increase in part to the severe 2024-25 flu season, which led to higher rates of hospitalizations and outpatient visits.
'Some seasons are better, with lower attack rates and lower morbidity, and other seasons, just by nature of the changes in the viruses, are worse, with more hospitalizations and more deaths,' Geeta Sood, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told the Wall Street Journal.
Experts also noted that COVID-19 is now contributing far fewer deaths than during the peak of the pandemic, when the virus claimed more than 1 million American lives and temporarily reversed decades of gains in U.S. life expectancy. Combined with the continued decline in fatal drug overdoses, this shift helped drive the nation's record-low mortality rate in 2025.
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