Leading Causes of Death

We’ve covered where healthcare spending is going in aggregate. Now it is time to focus on what people are using the healthcare system for. As a first step, what are the leading causes of death in the US?

The most common causes of death boil down to organ failure of various kinds, cancer, and accidental death. Heart disease is by far the leading killer and especially so if we add other types of vascular disease such as strokes into one category.

Accidental deaths are a growing category because opioid overdoses are classified as accidental poisoning. With more than 100,000 overdoses a year, drugs are a bigger killer than diabetes, kidney disease, or liver disease.

Tomorrow we will cover the most common diseases that Americans are living with to then see how healthcare spending lines up against what is killing Americans and making them sick.