Leading Causes of Death in America

Heart disease kills more people in the United States than anything else. It killed 683,491 people in 2024, the most recent year of final data from the CDC. Cancer was second, at 619,876. Those two causes together account for more than four in every ten deaths in the country.^[1]

This page answers the questions people ask about how Americans die: the single leading cause, the full top ten, the specific ranks, how the answer changes by age, the leading cause worldwide, and which causes are preventable. Every figure carries its year and links to the government source it came from. Where 2024 final data exists, we use it. Where the most recent official breakdown is older, we say so.

Heart disease. In 2024, heart disease killed 683,491 people, about 22 percent of all deaths that year, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.^[1]

Cancer is a close second. The gap is smaller than most people think: 683,491 heart disease deaths against 619,876 cancer deaths in 2024. Total deaths in the US that year were 3,072,666, and the ten leading causes accounted for 70.9 percent of them. Life expectancy at birth was 79.0 years, up from 78.4 in 2023.^[1]

Here are the ten leading causes of death in the United States in 2024, ranked by number of deaths, from the CDC's final data:^[1]

1. Heart disease: 683,491
2. Cancer: 619,876
3. Unintentional injuries (accidents): 197,449
4. Stroke: 166,852
5. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 145,643
6. Alzheimer disease: 116,022
7. Diabetes: 94,445
8. Kidney disease: 55,081
9. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis: 52,274
10. Suicide: 48,824

Two things changed in 2024. Suicide became the tenth leading cause of death. COVID-19, which was the tenth leading cause in 2023, fell to fifteenth as COVID deaths dropped 37 percent.^[1]

The second leading cause of death in the US is cancer, with 619,876 deaths in 2024. The third is unintentional injuries, also called accidents, with 197,449 deaths. The fourth is stroke, with 166,852 deaths.^[1]

Accidents ranking third, above stroke and every chronic disease below it, surprises people. Drug overdoses are a large part of the reason. Drug overdose deaths were 79,384 in 2024, down from 105,007 in 2023, the largest one-year drop in the decade of data the CDC reports.^[2]

The leading cause of death changes sharply with age. In 2023, unintentional injuries led for Americans ages 1 to 44, cancer led for ages 45 to 64, and heart disease led for ages 65 and older. For ages 10 to 24 and 25 to 44, suicide was the second leading cause.^[3] The count for every age band, from infants to 65 and older, is in Leading Causes of Death by Age. If you're thinking about suicide, call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Worldwide, the leading cause of death is ischaemic heart disease, the same coronary artery disease that leads in the US. The World Health Organization counted 9.5 million deaths from it in 2023, about 16 percent of all deaths on earth, in its most recent Global Health Estimates.^[4] The global top ten, where COVID-19 ranked in 2021, and how low-income and high-income countries differ are in Leading Causes of Death in the World.

The leading preventable cause of death in the United States is cigarette smoking. Smoking and secondhand smoke cause more than 480,000 deaths a year, close to one in five deaths, according to the CDC.^[5] Those deaths are already counted inside heart disease, cancer, and lung disease above; smoking is what drives a large share of the top of the list.

The CDC tracks two more preventable causes separately. Excessive drinking killed about 178,000 people a year in 2020 and 2021, up 29 percent from 2016 and 2017.^[6] Drug overdose killed 79,384 in 2024.^[2] These are the numbers that individual choices and public policy move, which is why public health tracks them apart from the disease categories they feed.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, and cancer is second for both. Below the top two, the lists differ. In 2023, unintentional injuries ranked third for men and sixth for women. Suicide ranked seventh for men and wasn't in the top ten for women. Alzheimer disease ranked fourth for women and eighth for men.^[3] Women also live longer: life expectancy at birth in 2024 was 81.4 years for women and 76.5 for men.^[1]

The idea that heart disease is a man's disease is wrong, and it costs lives. It’s the number-one killer of American women too.

These rankings come from death certificates. For each death, a doctor or medical examiner records one underlying cause, and the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics tallies them using standard international coding rules. Leading cause means the condition that started the chain of events, even when something else finished it. A death that ends in pneumonia after a stroke is counted as a stroke death. It’s also why smoking, which causes many heart and cancer deaths, doesn’t appear as its own line.

The most recent final US data is for 2024, released by the CDC in 2026.^[1] Worldwide figures come from the WHO's Global Health Estimates, whose most recent year is 2023.^[4] Final national data runs about a year behind, so the leading causes for the current year aren’t confirmed until the following one.

This page is death education. It doesn’t replace medical advice. Figures are the most recent final data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics and the World Health Organization; see our Sources and Methodology. If you’re worried about your own risk, the causes near the top of this list are also the most preventable, and your doctor is the place to start.