Related Pages
Injuries and violence affect everyone, regardless of age, race, or economic status. In the first half of life, more Americans die from injuries and violence — such as motor vehicle crashes, suicide, or homicides — than from any other cause, including cancer, HIV, or the flu. This makes injury the leading cause of death among persons aged 1-44.
Top Ten Leading Causes of Death in the U.S. for Ages 1-44 from 1981-2022
How to use: Click play to start. When animation completes, click repeat to start over again.
- Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for Americans aged 1-44 years old.
- Unintentional injuries include opioid overdoses (unintentional poisoning), motor vehicle crashes, and unintentional falls.
- Suicide is now the 2nd leading cause of death for this 1-44 age group, and numbers of suicides continue to rise.
- Homicide remains in the top 5 leading causes of death for the 1-44 age group.
Unintentional Injury Deaths in the U.S. for Ages 1-44 from 1981-2022
Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for Americans aged 1-44 years old. The leading causes of death for unintentional injury include: unintentional poisoning (e.g., drug overdoses), unintentional motor vehicle (m.v.) traffic, unintentional drowning, and unintentional falls.
WISQARS fatal injury data come from the National Vital Statistics System multiple-cause-of-death database, using ICD-9 (1981-1998) and ICD-10 (1999-2020) underlying-cause-of-death codes. For data from 1981-1998, unintentional injury included adverse events and homicide included legal intervention. Data for these charts can be found in WISQARS Leading Causes of Death.