Leading and Actual Causes of Death

In 2003 there were a total of 2,448,288 deaths in the United States. The list here represents the number of deaths for the leading causes of deaths overall.

The information is from the latest data on the leading causes of death overall from the Center for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics. The data is based on the latest statistics available from 2003.

• Heart disease accounting for 654,092 deaths.
• Cancer accounting for 550,270 deaths.
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases) accounting for 150,147 deaths.
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases accounting for 123,884 deaths.
• Accidents (unintentional injuries) accounting for 108,694 deaths.
• Diabetes accounting for 72,815 deaths.
• Alzheimer's disease accounting for 65,829 deaths.
• Influenza and Pneumonia accounting for 61,472 deaths.
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis accounting for 42,762 deaths.
• Septicemia accounting for 33,464 deaths.

Note: See the Related page on Overall Leading Causes of Death for a defintions, links and descriptions of these leading causes of death.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics. Deaths-Leading Causes from Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2004, table 7. Center for Disease Control. At: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm