What do young Americans aged 15 to 24 die of most often?

In the 12 months through June 2025, the leading cause of death for Americans aged 15 to 24 was unintentional injuries, at 24.0 deaths per 100,000 people that age. Suicide (13.4) and homicide (10.0) came next. Unintentional injuries include accidental overdoses and traffic crashes. Deaths from disease are rare at this age. The numbers are provisional.

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Key facts

Measure: Deaths per 100,000 people aged 15 to 24 in a year. Written from the data below.

  • Unintentional injuries has the highest figure, 24, followed by Suicide (13.4) and Homicide (10).
  • COVID-19 has the lowest figure, 0.1, followed by Stroke (0.4) and Chronic lower respiratory diseases (0.5).
  • The highest is 240 times the lowest.

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Source and date

Source
CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Quarterly provisional estimates of mortality
License
Public domain (U.S. government work)
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “What do young Americans aged 15 to 24 die of most often?” Chart. Data: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Quarterly provisional estimates of mortality, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-dashboard.htm (data as of June 30, 2025). https://chart.ly/charts/causes-of-death-ages-15-to-24 (accessed November 4, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly. Developers can also get them as JSON (how).

Cause of death Deaths per 100,000 people aged 15 to 24 in a year
Unintentional injuries 24
Suicide 13.4
Homicide 10
Cancer 3.1
Heart disease 1.9
Diabetes 0.6
Influenza and pneumonia 0.6
Chronic lower respiratory diseases 0.5
Stroke 0.4
COVID-19 0.1

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