US life expectancy reached a record high in 2024 as deaths from drug overdose and Covid-19 dropped

EDITOR’S NOTE:  If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 to connect with a trained counselor, or visit the 988 Lifeline website.

People in the United States can expect to live longer than ever, as death rates returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2024.

Life expectancy in the US had been trending up for decades before dropping by nearly a year and a half between 2019 and 2021, but it’s been on the rise again since 2022.

Another 4% drop in the death rate between 2023 and 2024 raised life expectancy by more than half a year.

This dramatic rebound has brought life expectancy at birth up to 79 years in 2024 — the highest it has ever been, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

There were 722 deaths for every 100,000 people in the US in 2024 – nearly 3.1 million deaths overall – according to final, age-adjusted data published Thursday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

The 10 leading causes of death accounted for more than 70% of all deaths in the US in 2024, led by heart disease and cancer that killed more than 600,000 people each.

But death rates declined for each of the 10 leading causes of death in 2024, including a particularly sharp drop in unintentional injuries — a category that is largely comprised of drug overdose deaths.

Drug overdose deaths spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic, but the rate has been declining since 2022, according to the CDC. In 2024, drug overdose death rates fell among all age groups and among all racial and ethnic groups — leading to a sharp overall drop of more than 26% in one year.

Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are still involved in most overdose deaths, ​but their involvement is becoming less prevalent — likely a key factor driving the overall decline in overdose deaths. About 6 in 10 overdose deaths in 2024 involved fentanyl or another synthetic opioid, CDC data shows, down from more than 9 in 10 in 2023.

Deaths involving psychostimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine also declined in 2024, according to the CDC data.

Drug overdoses are still a leading cause of death in the US — more than 79,000 people died from one in 2024 — but provisional data from the CDC shows continued drops into 2025.

Covid-19 quickly rose to the third leading cause of death in the US in the first two years of the pandemic, falling to fourth in 2022 and tenth in 2023, according to CDC data. But it dropped out of the 10 leading causes of death in 2024, replaced by suicide.

There are still tens of thousands of Covid-19 deaths in the US each year, but suicide mortality reached a record high in the US in 2022 and has decreased only slightly in the years since.

In 2024, more than 14 million adults had serious thoughts of suicide, 4.6 million made a suicide plan and 2.2 million attempted suicide, according to survey data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Millions of people have called, texted, or sent chats to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline since mid-2022; about a tenth of those individuals who reached were routed to a specialized subnetwork for LGBTQ+ youth — a service the Trump administration ended last year.

Overall, women can still expect to live a few years longer than men but that gap is shrinking, CDC data shows. The life expectancy for women increased by 0.3 years to 81.4 in 2024, while life expectancy for men increased 0.7 years to 76.5.

Death rates decreased across all racial and ethnic groups between 2023 and 2024, but stark disparities remain. Despite higher than average declines, American Indian men and Black men continued to have the highest age-adjusted death rate in 2024 — about 1,200 deaths and 1,000 deaths per 100,000 people, respectively.

Death rates also decreased across age groups, except among children ages 5 to 14 for whom the death rate held relatively steady between 2023 and 2024.

Infant mortality had been trending down in the US for decades before spiking in 2022, and the latest CDC data shows that recovery is slow. More than 20,000 babies died before they turned 1 in 2024 – about 5.5 deaths for every 1,000 live births. Last year, the Mississippi health department declared a public health emergency over rising infant mortality rates in the state.