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 to recede, according to new federal statistics.
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 threatened by the Trump administration's moves to curtail Medicaid expansion and cut funding for rural hospitals.
Some states in the Northeast saw 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%). Some experts credit states’ attention to healthcare, traffic issues and gun violence.
New Jersey took the lead in decreases because of a long-term commitment to expanding healthcare to people with low incomes, said Stephen Crystal, director of Rutgers University’s Center for Health Services Research.
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New Jersey stands out for having less than half the national rate of firearm deaths, both suicide and homicide, as well as deaths from heart and kidney diseases caused by high blood pressure. The rate of traffic accident deaths is also well below the national rate.
There’s a more confrontational attitude toward speeding and less tolerance for guns in the Northeast, Crystal said.
“(New Jersey) state troopers have the cojones to pull you over if you’re doing 90 on the turnpike. This is not the case in Wyoming,” Crystal said. “Also, if you go out West where gun possession is very high, then the firearm suicide deaths become enormous.”
Pictures of loved ones lost to gun violence are displayed during a vigil in honor of victims of gun-related deaths at Public Square Park in Nashville, Tenn., on Sept. 20, 2024.
Nationally, most of the decrease between 2024 and 2025 came from young age groups. The things most likely to kill them dropped after spiking during the 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.
Some states have not improved since 2015, according to provisional statistics analyzed by Stateline. New Mexico had an age-adjusted death rate 9% higher last year than 10 years ago, as drug overdose deaths continue to plague the state at more than twice the national rate.
New Mexico also struggles with higher death rates from alcoholic liver disease and gun homicide. Arizona, where the death rate is 5% higher than 10 years ago, also stands out for a high overdose death rate and a high gun suicide rate.
Iowa and Oklahoma death rates are also up 5% from 2015. Iowa stands out for a higher-than-national rate of fall-related deaths, typical of an aging rural population with little day-to-day supervision. Oklahoma has a similarly high rate of fall-related deaths, and almost four times the national rate of deaths from high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries — both problems that can be controlled with medication.
Iowa has a falls prevention program that stresses exercise to maintain mobility and monitoring excessive medication that could cause dizziness, poor vision and unsafe home conditions.
Almost two-thirds of the national death rate improvement for 2024 to 2025 came from people ages 15 to 44, Campbell told Stateline.
Improvements were especially large for young people ages 25 to 34, a group including younger Millennials and older Gen Z, a demographic hard hit by homicides and drug overdose deaths early in the pandemic, Campbell said. The rate for accidents, a category that includes drug overdoses, gun accidents and traffic accidents, dropped 6% in one year, and the homicide rate dropped 14%, she said.
It’s hard to be sure how much death rates really changed between 2024 and 2025 because the methodology changed, Crystal noted.
For 2025, the CDC used different methods to calculate rates, including more adjustments to 2020 census data used as a basis for age adjustment, noting in the report that the results could change and “should be interpreted with caution.”
Asked about the issue, the CDC said “as this is a provisional report, we did not go in depth about the change in population denominators” and that it is “planning a brief report that will show the impact” of the changes on death rates and birth rate in new statistics.
In any case, the Trump administration likely can’t claim credit for current decreases in death rates, which would reflect policy changes from years ago that slowly take effect, Crystal said.
One killer of young people has not dropped: The rate of gun suicide has increased 14% since 2015, according to the Stateline analysis. Suicide has affected Gen Z more than previous generations.
“As a country we are improving. We should celebrate that. But many segments of the population are left behind,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington.
Mokdad credited medical advances for the decrease in heart disease that occurred despite increased obesity.
“That decline in cardiovascular disease was due to better-controlled blood pressure,” Mokdad said. “Blood pressure medication, when it came out, was very expensive. Now blood pressure medication is so cheap you can get a three-month supply for less than the price of a cup of coffee.”
