Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020;5(4):122-128.
doi: 10.14218/ERHM.2020.00065.

Underlying Causes of Death among Adults in the United States, 2013-2017

Xin Hu  1 , Yong Lin  2   3 , Gangjian Qin  4 , Lanjing Zhang  2   5   6   7
Affiliations

Underlying Causes of Death among Adults in the United States, 2013-2017

Xin Hu et al. Explor Res Hypothesis Med. 2020.

Abstract

Background and objectives: Overall mortality among U.S. adults has been stable in past years; however, racial disparity influenced 10 leading causes of death or age-specific mortality in Blacks or African Americans. Unfortunately, the trends in sex- and race-adjusted age-standardized cause-specific mortality are poorly understood.

Methods: We here aimed to identify the underlying causes of death (UCD) with sex- and race-adjusted, and age-standardized mortality that has changed in recent years. We extracted the data of UCD from the Multiple Cause of Death database of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Multivariable log-linear regression models were used to estimate trends in sex- and race-adjusted, and age-standardized mortality of UCD during 2013-2017.

Results: A total of 31,029,133 deaths were identified. Among the list of 113 UCDs compiled by the CDC, there were 29 UCDs exhibiting an upward trend, 33 UCDs exhibiting a downward trend and 56 UCDs with no significant trends. The 2 UCDs with the largest annual percent change were both nutrition related (annual percent change [APC] = 17.73, 95% CI [15.13-20.33] for malnutrition, and APC = 17.49, 95% CI [14.94-20.04] for Nutritional deficiencies), followed by accidental poisoning and exposure to noxious substances. The 4 UCDs with the largest decreasing APC were viral hepatitis (APC = -11.71), chronic and unspecified bronchitis (APC = -8.26), emphysema (APC = -7.11) and human immunodeficiency virus disease (APC = -7.10).

Conclusions: This study thus reports UCDs with changing mortality in recent years after sex- and race-adjustments and age-standardizations. More effort and resources should focus on understanding, preventing and controling the mortality linked to these UCDs. Continuous monitoring of mortality trends is recommended.

Keywords: Causes of death; Population study; Racial disparity; Trend analysis; US mortality.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest No conflict of interest declared by any of the authors.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.. The top 15 underlying causes of deaths for the fastest increasing and decreasing trends in sex- and race-adjusted and age-standardized mortality among adults in the U.S., 2013–2017.
The underlying causes of deaths with increasing trends are highlighted in yellow, while those with decreasing trends are highlighted in blue. # indicates a “rankable” cause of death, from the National Center for Health Statistics list of rankable causes of death. The rankable causes are a subset of the 113 selected causes of death.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Heron MP. Deaths: leading causes for 2013. Natl Vital Stat Rep 2016;65(2):1–95. - PubMed
    1. Heron MP. Deaths: Leading causes for 2016. Natl Vital Stat Rep 2018;67(6):1–77. - PubMed
    1. Cunningham TJ, Croft JB, Liu Y, Lu H, Eke PI, Giles WH. Vital Signs: Racial Disparities in Age-Specific Mortality Among Blacks or African Americans - United States, 1999–2015. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2017;66(17):444–456. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm6617e1. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chang MH, Moonesinghe R, Athar HM, Truman BI. Trends in Disparity by Sex and Race/Ethnicity for the Leading Causes of Death in the United States-1999–2010. J Public Health Manag Pract 2016;22(Suppl 1):S13–24. doi: 10.1097/phh.0000000000000267. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ivey-Stephenson AZ, Crosby AE, Jack SPD, Haileyesus T, Kresnow-Sedacca MJ. Suicide Trends Among and Within Urbanization Levels by Sex, Race/Ethnicity, Age Group, and Mechanism of Death - United States, 2001–2015. MMWR Surveill Summ 2017;66(18):1–16. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.ss6618a1. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources