a dissertation Ahmed and Anderson in American Medical Association Last spring, we studied the trends in the causes of death in the United States. The following is a chart of the death toll and the proportion of total deaths. The data comes from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).

Of course, the key item that needs attention is the emergence of COVID-19. In 2020, more than 1 in 10 people in the United States (10.3%) will die of COVID-19. From this perspective, the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 is approximately twice the number of deaths from stroke (the fifth leading cause of death) and 6.5 times the combined number of deaths from seasonal influenza and pneumonia. By 2021, due to the emergence of vaccines, one can expect that the number of deaths due to COVID-19 will decrease, but this will be offset to a certain extent by the fact that COVID-19 will spread throughout 2021, which is mainly from 2020 Started in March of the year.

Other trends that need to be noted are that we do see the proportion of deaths due to heart disease and cancer generally declining over time, especially cancer. In addition, despite concerns about mental health issues in 2020, we do see a slight decline in the number of suicides in 2020, although this effect may be partly due to the death risk competition caused by COVID-19.

As we enter 2022, it will be very important to study how these numbers evolve.