Causes of death across different locations in the United States, 2015 to 2022.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to investigate the leading underlying causes of death across different locations in the USA from 2015 to 2022.

METHODS

Data on the leading underlying causes of death in each location of death-including medical outpatient facility or emergency room, medical inpatient facility, medical facility/dead on arrival, decedent's home, hospice facility, and nursing home/long-term care-within the USA in individuals ≥18 years were extracted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER) database.

RESULTS

There were 22,236,700 deaths in our studied locations during the study period. Most deaths were in the decedents' homes (34.5%), followed by inpatient medical facilities (31.8%). Malignant neoplasms were the leading cause of death in hospice facilities (32.8%-40.0%) and decedents' homes (25.9%-31.5%), followed by heart disease. Heart disease was the most common cause of death in nursing homes/long-term care facilities (20.0%-23.6%), outpatient or emergency medical facilities (36.5%-44.7%), those dead on arrival at medical facilities (35.4%-40.3%), and inpatient medical facilities (14.3%-20.4%), with COVID-19 becoming the top cause of death in 2020 and 2021 in inpatient medical facilities.

CONCLUSION

Overall, heart disease and malignant neoplasm were among the top three causes of death in all studied locations in our study period.