Study: National death rate drops, mostly from decreases among younger age groups

The nation’s death rate may have fallen to a historic low last year as many of the killers of young people such as drug overdoses, gun homicides and traffic accidents continued receding in 2025, according to new federal statistics (Source: “As national death rate dips, some states did better than others,” Stateline, July 23).  
 
States have not shared equally in the success, though, according to a Stateline analysis of provisional data by state. And the low ebb may reflect the effects of past healthcare expansion efforts that are threatened by recent federal policy changes to curtail Medicaid expansion and cut funding for rural hospitals. 
 
Some states in the Northeast have seen death rates drop by the most between 2015 and 2025 — led by New Jersey (down 8.3%), Rhode Island (down 8%), New York (down 7.9%), Massachusetts (down 7.4%) and the District of Columbia (down 7.0%). Conversely, the age-adjusted death rate in New Mexico increased 9% over the past decade and Iowa and Oklahoma saw increases of 5%.
 
Ohio’s death rate decreased slightly from 828.4 per 100,000 people in 2015 to 825.1 in 2025 (a drop of 0.4%).
 
Nationally almost two-thirds of the decrease between 2024 and 2025 came from young age groups. The things most likely to kill them dropped after spiking during the early pandemic, including drug overdoses, traffic accidents, gun violence and suicide, according to an analysis of death counts by Mary Pat Campbell, an actuary and life insurance analyst in New York state.