New mortality data from the United States government suggests that life expectancy probably hit another record high in 2025, as death rates have continued to fall since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

There were about 689 deaths for every 100,000 people in the US in 2025, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the lowest rate recorded in more than a century of tracking. The age-adjusted rate has fallen 22% since 2021, landing about 4% lower than it was just before the pandemic in 2019.

Life expectancy is essentially a population-level snapshot of death rates in a given year. This calculation isn’t included in the new report — the mortality data is provisional and subject to change as the full set of death records are processed — but a record-low death rate would most likely suggest a record-high life expectancy, demographic experts say.

The top causes of death in the US in 2025 followed longstanding patterns: Heart disease led with nearly 695,000 deaths, followed by cancer with nearly 623,000 deaths.

Unintentional injuries, which includes drug overdoses, were the third leading cause of death. Overdose deaths are still high — about 70,000 people died from an overdose in 2025, preliminary CDC data shows — but experts say that sharp declines probably played a large role in bringing the age-adjusted death rate down in the US.

“Life expectancy is going to be affected a lot by what’s happening at younger age groups more than at older age groups,” said Mark Mather, an associate vice president at the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit focused on using demographic data to help improve well-being. “As we see a dramatic decline in drug overdose among younger adults, that will have a more measurable impact on life expectancy at older ages and the overall life expectancy of the population.”

An increasing popular longevity movement — especially prominent among groups with higher socioeconomic status — aims to use artificial intelligence, supplements and medical treatments to optimize their biology to live as long as possible.

But research shows that some of the best ways to help yourself live a long, healthy life involve more basic habits that help prevent some of the leading causes of death.

“I have a mom who’s up there in years, and the advice I give her is to keep walking,” Mather said. “Mobility is a pretty strong indicator of life expectancy and health in old age.”

Staying active helps encourage social connections that also keep you biologically young.

“These kinds of social connections get under your skin and affect how your body is aging, basically at the cellular level, which is tied into all of these other major causes of death” he said.

A 2023 study found that sleeping seven to nine hours a night was linked to improved longevity outcomes by 18%. Eating a plant-based diet increased people’s chances of living longer by 21%. Having tools for managing stress on a daily basis is linked to 22% improvement and positive social interactions another 5%.

Still, there are limits to how much an individual can do to improve their longevity without broader societal and policy support, said Dr. Steven Woolf, director emeritus and senior advisor at the Virginia Commonwealth University Center of Society and Health, who has a background in family medicine.

“A lot of the reasons why Americans die at higher rates from these diseases than people in other countries is the conditions they’re living in, and those are shaped by public policy,” Woolf said. “There’s a lot of policy choices that affect these death rates.”

Policies can significantly affect the exposure that different groups have to health threats and access to opportunities and resources to improve health, he said, and that is especially prevalent in disparities in death rates among racial and ethnic groups.

Death rates among Black and American Indian people are more than twice as high as they are for Asian people, the new CDC report shows.

“The systemic issues affecting the health of Americans are still claiming lives,” he said.

Advances in public health and medicine have helped drive death rates down in the US and other wealthy nations over the past century, Woolf said. But the mortality rate flatlined around 2010 in the US, even as it continued to decrease in other peer nations.

“We saw an alarming increase in deaths from in young and middle-aged Americans that was not experienced in other high-income countries, and that basically offset the progress that was being made in lowering death rates for older Americans,” he said. “Most of those problems that were responsible for the flatlining have not been resolved, and they’re continuing to claim lives.”

The new CDC report shows that death rates decreased for all age groups in 2025, compared with 2024. But the smallest decline — less than half of the overall decline — was among people ages 45 to 54.

“Children are less likely to survive to adulthood, and young adults are less likely to reach middle age than they were in the past,” Woolf said.

Declines in overdose deaths are probably having an impact, but deaths from firearms, suicide, alcohol-related disease, diabetes and heart disease are all still challenges for these age groups, he said.

Death rates vary dramatically between men and women too, the new CDC report shows. There was an age-adjusted rate of 811 deaths per 100,000 men, compared with a rate of 583 deaths per 100,000 women, in 2025.

Genetics play a role in some of that difference, Mather said, but more risk-taking behavior may also drive mortality rates higher among younger age groups for men.

Less risk and healthier behaviors can help a person live longer — and they can also improve the quality of those years, experts say.

“Mortality rates are a good starting point for getting a snapshot for what our health situation looks like,” Woolf said. “I’ll hasten to emphasize that there’s more to health than mortality. It’s not just how long we live, it’s the quality of our life.” (CNN)

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