NEW YORK — U.S. life expectancy rose to 79 years in 2024 — the highest mark in American history.
It’s the result of not only the dissipation of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also waning death rates from all the nation’s top killers, including heart disease, cancer and drug overdoses.
What’s more, preliminary statistics suggest a continued improvement in 2025.
“It’s pretty much good news all the way around,” said Robert Anderson, of the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the 2024 data on Thursday.
Life expectancy, a fundamental measure of a population’s health, is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, given death rates at that time.
For decades, U.S. life expectancy rose at least a little bit almost every year, thanks to medical advances and public health measures. It peaked in 2014, just shy of 79 years.
It was relatively flat for several years before plunging as the COVID-19 pandemic killed more than 1.2 million Americans. In 2021, life expectancy fell to just under 76.5 years. It has been rebounding since.
The data reflect not only a complete turnaround from the pandemic but also a lasting improvement in the drug overdose epidemic, said Andrew Stokes, a researcher at Boston University.
The bad news is that the U.S. still ranks below dozens of other countries, Stokes noted.
“There’s a lot more to be done,” he said.
In 2024, about 3.07 million U.S. residents died, about 18,000 fewer than the year before. Death rates declined across all racial and ethnic groups, and in both men and women.
Heart disease remained the nation’s leading cause of death, but the death rate due to it dropped by about 3% for the second year in a row. A combination of factors are likely at play, including advances in medical treatments and weight management, said Dr. Sadiya Khan, who treats and studies heart disease at Northwestern University.
Deaths from unintentional injuries — a category that includes drug overdoses — fell the most, dropping more than 14% in 2024. COVID-19, which only a few years ago was the nation’s No. 3 killer, in 2024 dropped out of the top 10.
COVID-19’s fall meant suicide moved into the top 10, even though suicides in 2024 declined. Homicides fell that year, too, this week’s report said.
Deaths statistics for 2025 are not finalized, but preliminary data suggest around 3.05 million deaths have been recorded. That number may grow as more death certificates are rounded up and analyzed, but Anderson said he expects last year will end up at least a slight improvement over 2024.
Stobbe writes for the Associated Press.
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