US cancer mortality rates have been falling for 25 years

Explore more statistics about cancer

The American Cancer Society's Cancer Statistics Center estimates there will be more than 2 million new cancer cases and almost 620,000 cancer deaths in the US during the course of 2025. Breast, prostate, and lung cancers remain the most prevalent. This interactive tool provides detailed statistics on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival rates, allowing users to explore data by state, cancer type, demographics, and risk factors.

Breast, prostate, and lung cancer are the most common forms of cancer.

About 40% of cancer cases are linked to preventable risk factors

Maintaining a healthy weight, engaging in regular physical activity, and consuming a balanced diet can lower cancer risk. Research indicates that about 40% of US cancer cases are linked to preventable factors, including poor diet and inactivity. Understanding these mechanisms empowers individuals to adopt healthier lifestyles for cancer prevention.

Lung cancer advances are making a big difference

Lung cancer deaths are declining faster than new cases due to advances in treatment. The progress illustrates what is possible, even for a cancer that has long had a poor prognosis.

Explore US public health data

This resource tracks key US health metrics, including mortality causes, child survival rates, and life expectancy comparisons, to inform future health improvements, with regularly updated global estimates.

America's top causes of death are heart disease, cancer, accidents, and stroke

Heart disease killed more than 680,000 people in 2023 and cancer killed around 613,000 people that year. Both causes of death are far above the next leading cause of death—accidents, which numbered around 223,000. Provisional data for 2024 indicates the leading causes of death remained the same.

Explore this interactive tool from the National Cancer Institute to calculate your risk of dying from various causes, including cancer.

Prostate cancer is both manageable and the second-deadliest cancer for men

One in 44 men in the US will die from prostate cancer, while one in eight will be diagnosed with it. Commonly viewed as the safest cancer to have, screenings can save lives—but they can also cause complications for otherwise benign cases of the disease.

Cancer rates are on the rise among GenXers and Millennials

Cancer rates are rising among Gen X and Millennials, with more cancer diagnoses being made in their 30s and 40s than previous generations. Factors such as prenatal exposures, environmental toxins, and lifestyle choices may contribute to this trend. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's experts discuss these issues, exploring how these insights could reshape cancer risk understanding.

A snapshot of progress in cancer treatments

The American Association for Cancer Research's "Snapshot of a Year of Progress" offers an overview of significant advancements in cancer research and treatment over the past year. Take a quick look at the rapid pace of scientific discovery and the translation of research findings into clinical practice. In 2024 alone, health regulators approved 15 new anticancer therapies alone.

Visualizing cause of death over time in America

As people age, their life expectancy decreases, but the timing and speed of this decline have evolved over the years. Check out this chart which shows the shift in various causes of death of Americans over the last few decades. Data from the...

Murder rates spiked in the US after COVID-19, and then declined in 2023

Criminologist and former investigator Jillian Peterson says whether a murder is solved in the US is nearly up to the flip of a coin, with the clearance rate for murder cases being about 50%. The US, which has more guns than citizens, has about roughly five gun homicides per 100,000 residents, resulting in the 28th-highest rate of deaths from gun violence compared to the rest of the world.

Explore global maps of cancer prevalence, with incidences that reflect various risk factors, including smoking rates, HPV infections, sunscreen use, and alcohol consumption.

Timeline of cancer research milestones

While cancer remains incurable, there's been so much progress in its treatment over the last two decades. Nature provides an abridged history of milestones and major triumphs in cancer research and treatment. Start in the year 2000, and see how much has changed in the first quarter of the new millennium

Visualizing obesity rates across the US

Nearly 70% of adults in the US are either overweight or obese, rates that have tripled over the last 60 years. Severe cases have risen tenfold during this period. Factors like location, income level, and demographics contribute to various obesity levels across the US. Visualize the statistics with this article and chart series.

Alcohol may be responsible for about 5% of cancer cases and 4% of cancer deaths in the US.

Most Americans are now dying at home, reversing 20th century trends

For most of the 21st and 20th centuries most Americans died in hospital settings. But in 2016, home-based deaths overtook hospitals; most Americans are now dying at home, likely fueled by individual preferences to die at home or to receive at-home palliative care.

Under-5 child mortality has been cut in half since 2000, UNICEF reports

The United Nations Children's Fund works globally to protect children's rights and well-being. Its 2024 report on child mortality reveals that under-5 deaths have halved since 2000. The report includes interactive data visualizations that can be sorted by year or topic.

Obesity rates have more than doubled worldwide since 1990

In the US alone, the percentage of the population meeting the clinical standard of obesity rose from less than 20% to more than 40% over the past three decades. This rise has been matched by many countries across the globe, from industrialized to developing nations.

The HPV vaccine reduces cervical cancer rates by about 90%.

US depression rates at historic high among adults

More than 18% of US adults reported that they currently have or are being treated for depression in both 2024 and 2025. In the 2025 survey, more than 11,000 adults were surveyed. The numbers have ticked upward since 2015—by about 8 percentage points—with most of the increase occurring from the 2020 pandemic onward.

Between 2003 and 2023, nearly 5M Americans lived in food deserts, elevating their risk for conditions linked to unhealthy nutrition, including cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

Divorces in the US have been steadily declining over the past few decades

Despite these recent declines, divorce rates in the US remain between 40% and 50%. But there’s some nuance to those numbers. For instance, having a college degree makes individuals 30% less likely to divorce than those without one. People who attend church are also less likely to divorce. And prenuptial agreements are considerably likely to prevent contentious court battles.

Find fertility clinics and their success rates in your state

This database from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides a searchable portal of fertility clinics across the US, with reported data on services, total procedures performed, and live births recorded for as recently as 2022.

The US trails behind other developed countries in reducing its stillbirth rates and may learn from Australia

Australia is in the vanguard of efforts to bring down stillbirth numbers with a national stillbirth plan integrated into its healthcare system, supported by clinicians, nurses, midwives, and politicians. Its work also includes a public awareness campaign, more regular fetal monitoring and follow-up for potential interventions, and more maternal advice about care and safety during pregnancy.

Low cell division rates in heart cells make heart cancer particularly rare

The heart's location in the chest also offers protection from external cancer-causing factors. The disease affects about 3 in every 10,000 people, though most cases arise from metastasis from other body parts.

Can AI revolutionize cancer detection?

Scientists have developed a tool to evaluate the risk of lung cancer, the most deadly form of the disease. Named "Sybil," this AI program was trained using CT scans with clear cancer signs, followed by scans where cancer wasn’t obvious. The tool is able to review CT scan data to predict a patient's of developing a lung cancer within six years. See how it works here.

Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, meaning the country had been free of continuous disease transmission for 12 months or more.

Child mortality rates since ancient Rome

One of the great achievements of modern humanity has been the sea change in child mortality rates—the chance that a newborn eventually lives past puberty. For thousands of years, children had a 50% chance of not entering adulthood. About 300 years...

The decline of the landline in the US

It costs 35% less to maintain AT&T's fiber subscribers than it does to keep up its legacy copper lines, a big difference leading the major phone company to plan to end its copper lines by 2030. Tens of millions of households still utilize a landline phone in the US, but they've been trending downward for at least two decades as people have gone wireless. Learn the trends and see the data visualized in this article.

Ranking America's healthiest and unhealthiest cities

Compiling data from the 180 most populated cities in the US, WalletHub evaluated which of those metros are the healthiest using 43 health indicators, from the average cost of a medical visit to total vaccination rates.

Understanding the low corporate tax rate in the US

Corporate taxes, which make up roughly a third of the federal government's revenue, have been calculated using a flat 21% rate since the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017. The current rate is considered low both by historic standards (it averaged over 50% in the 1950s and 1960s) and compared to other countries.

Discover the latest information on US measles cases from official outbreak tracking figures.

Roughly 1 in 5 cancers are caused by viruses

About 20% of cancers are caused by viruses, with seven specific oncoviruses causing between 10% and 15% of cancers worldwide. These include human papillomavirus and hepatitis B and C viruses, which can lead to diseases such as cervical and liver cancer. Understanding the mechanisms of these viruses is crucial for prevention and treatment strategies.

Measles cases in the US reached a 35-year high in 2026 as vaccination rates dropped.

Heat-related deaths may have climbed by more than 50% over 20 years

Between 2000 and 2009 one study suggests annual heat deaths averaged around 2,670, but between 2010 and 2020 that figure was likely more than 4,000. Researchers studied 54 million death records from the contiguous US and created mathematical models to arrive at these figures, noting that a combination of aging populations and climate change drove that increase.

The latest data on US motherhood

Here’s a snapshot of what motherhood looks like in the U.S. today, drawn from government data and Pew Research Center surveys. The list includes seven headline statistics with visual graphs, including the average age of a mother's first childbirth...

1 in 31 kids in the US has autism

That figure comes from an analysis published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based on data gathered on eight-year-olds in 2022. Its figures mark a significant increase from 2000, when the estimated autism figure was one in 150, but improvements in diagnosis and changes to the disease criteria that broadened the diagnostic criteria are widely believed to be driving that increase.

Roughly 75% of Americans report feeling okay financially

Since 2022, fewer Americans report feeling worse off financially, moving from 35% in 2022 to 28% in 2025. Likewise, the number of Americans who reported feeling better about the economy is up 4% from 2022. More than 90% of Americans cite price increases as their biggest financial concern.

Explore the gap in what Americans die from versus news coverage on death causes

Top killers like heart disease, stroke, and liver disease, though they represent a significant burden nationally, are not often extensively covered in the media.

Explore the National Cancer Institute's archive on cancer treatments, including complementary and alternative medicine.

Patients are a part of the progress

Navigating a cancer diagnosis can be terrifying and overwhelming. There is a robust community of patient advocates dedicated to prevention and diagnosis, research and clinical trials, legislation, needs of individual cancer types, among others. See how patient advocacy improves cancer research leading to improved treatment options and patient care.

Learn why the Montreal Protocol may help prevent millions of cancer deaths

By restoring the ozone layer and reducing ultraviolet exposure, full implementation of the Montreal Protocol is expected to prevent about 443 million cases of skin cancer, 2.3 million skin cancer deaths, and 63 million cases of cataracts among Americans born from 1890 to 2100.

Explore detailed US census data for each state

QuickFacts provides statistics for all states and counties, and for cities and towns with a population of 5,000 or more, collected through the US census. Interactive tables, maps, and charts synthesize census data. A drop-down menu allows users to...

Explore why Americans are drinking less alcohol

US alcohol consumption fell 5% in 2025, with beer and wine leading the decline. Economists point to tighter budgets and less face-to-face socializing overall, while younger Americans are increasingly choosing not to drink.

Large animals like giraffes and elephants have evolved unique cancer defenses.

Loneliness is more dangerous to your health than smoking.

See where the United States ranked in annual working hours per worker among major countries over time.

Find out how prevalent the flu is at this current moment

Updated weekly, this USAFacts resource shares current data from the CDC detailing how many cases of influenza and other flu-like illnesses accounted for doctor's visits. Monitor the spread of respiratory illness during flu season with this handy resource and prepare accordingly.

How race science influences breast cancer research

Despite researchers' and physicians' pushback, race is still used in studies and clinics to categorize human differences in health conditions and treatment responses. This article explores how race has influenced breast cancer research. Considering race as a factor in cancer research, diagnosis, and treatment can lead to racial inequalities. Sociocultural factors, including food access and air pollution, greatly influence health outcomes.