Dive Brief:
- The U.S. saw an increase in its overall death rate in 2015 -- the first such increase in more than 10 years, according to early data released by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
- The increase came largely from higher rates of drug overdoses, suicide and Alzheimer’s disease, with a slight increase in heart disease, The New York Times reported.
- While it has recently been noted death rates are up among some whites and suicides have reached a 30-year high, the rare increase for the overall population is getting experts' attention.
Dive Insight:
The question that remains at this time is what the increase means. It's unclear whether whites specifically pushed up the national death rate because the NCHS's preliminary data does not break down data by race. However, if the increase continues, that could indicate a national signal of distress, experts said.
"It’s an uptick in mortality and that doesn’t usually happen, so it’s significant,” Robert Anderson of the NCHS told the Times. “But the question is, what does it mean? We really need more data to know. If we start looking at 2016 and we see another rise, we’ll be a lot more concerned.”
The death rate went from 723.2 per 100,000 people in 2014 to 729.5 deaths per 100,000 people in 2015, the NCHS stats show. Only a few other upticks have occurred in recent history: 2005, 1999 and 1993, the Times reported.