US all-cause deaths by sex, 1999 to 2020
US all-cause deaths by sex stood at 1,091 in 2020, up 19.6% on the previous period.
The rate of deaths from all causes in the United States, per 100,000 population, compared between men and women. The latest readings (2020): Male at 1,090.8, Female at 965.1.
How it is measured
Every point is built from death certificates: each US death is certified, assigned an underlying cause under the ICD-10 coding standard, and compiled in CDC WONDER. Rates divide deaths by group population, so groups of different sizes are directly comparable, and small counts are suppressed by CDC privacy rules rather than shown imprecisely. The modern coding standard begins in 1999, which is where this series starts, keeping every year internally comparable.
What the curve shows
All-cause mortality is the denominator of public health: it needs no cause-coding judgment, so it is the cleanest series for spotting shocks like the pandemic years. Comparing the lines is the point: the gap between them is itself the finding, and its stability or drift over two decades says more than either line alone.
What does per 100,000 mean?
How is the cause of death decided?
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