Excess deaths in young adults

Mortality Trends Among Early Adults in the United States, 1999-2023

US population groups, ages 25-44 years, 1999 – 2023

All cause mortality

Other natural causes of death

Transport

Alcohol related

Homicide

Endocrine, nutrition, metabolic

Digestive

Circulatory

Cancers

Mutually exclusive underlying cause-of-death categories were adapted from prior work

Used baseline of 1999 to 2010,

to project expected mortality trends for 2011 to 2023.

We analyzed 3, 392, 364 deaths among the full US population aged 25-44 years from 1999 to 2023.

In 2021, all-cause excess mortality was nearly 3 times what it had been in 2019

(116.2 vs 41.7 deaths per 100 000 population).

In 2023, excess mortality decreased to79.1 deaths per 100 000 population.

Early adult mortality was 70.0% higher in 2023 than it would have been had pre-2011 trends continued,

reflecting 71, 124 excess deaths.

Although mortality rates decreased after the core pandemic years, excess mortality remained higher than expected based on prepandemic levels.

Increases in early adult mortality can signal population risks that may become more pronounced as these cohorts age.

These results suggest the possibility of a worsening mortality crisis unless these trends are reversed.

The 2 distinct phases of increasing mortality (before and after 2020) may also suggest the need to attend to ongoing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic,

causes of death related to long-term consequences of infection, medical disruption, and social dislocation—and to deleterious health trends that predated it.