Temporal Trends in Mortality in the U.S., 1969-2013

A systematic and comprehensive examination of long-term trends in mortality is important for health planning and priority setting and for identifying modifiable factors that may contribute to the trends. A report in 20051 examined temporal trends from 1970 through 2002 for the 6 leading causes of death in the United States and found that age-standardized death rates decreased for all causes and for heart disease, stroke, cancer, and injuries individually, whereas an overall increasing trend was observed for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the evolution of US mortality trends since 2002 is unknown. Therefore, we updated the previous analysis with 11 additional data years (1969-2013) using the same analytic approaches to describe contemporary mortality trends for all causes and the 6 leading causes of death. In addition, we examined trends in years of potential life lost due to premature deaths, another important measure of disease burden.