New research from the University of Minnesota shows that death rates for early adults, or adults aged 25-44, rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic and remain higher than expected post-pandemic.
Heightened death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic intensified an already negative trend for early adults, which began around 2010. As a result, early adult death rates in 2023 were about 70% higher than they might have been if death rates had not begun to rise about a decade before the pandemic.
Researchers from the University of Minnesota and Boston University analyzed death rates between 1999-2023. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, found:
- For early adults, there was a large jump in the death rate between 2019 and 2021, which are considered the core pandemic years. In 2023, the death rate remained nearly 20% higher than in 2019.
- Drug-related deaths are the single largest cause of 2023 excess mortality, compared with the mortality that would have been expected had earlier trends continued.
- Other important contributing causes were a variety of natural causes, including cardiometabolic and nutritional causes, and a variety of other external causes, including transport deaths.
"The rise in opiate deaths has been devastating for Americans in early and middle adulthood," said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, lead author and an associate professor in the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts and Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation. "What we didn't expect is how many different causes of death have really grown for these early adults. It's drug and alcohol deaths, but it's also car collisions, it's circulatory and metabolic diseases - causes that are very different from each other. That tells us this isn't one simple problem to fix, but something broader."
Excess mortality rate for each year among Americans aged 25-44, broken into causes of death. causes of death are listed in order of the respective panel's outcome (highest to lowest) in 2023. Credit: University of Minnesota.
"Our findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive policies to address the structural factors driving worsening health among recent generations of young adults," said author Andrew Stokes of Boston University. "Solutions may include expanding access to nutritious foods, strengthening social services and increasing regulation of industries that affect public health."
Future research will explore ongoing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the trends that were already in place when it began.
Funding was provided by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institute on Aging, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Minnesota Population Center.
About the College of Liberal Arts
For more than 150 years, the College of Liberal Arts has played a central and enduring role in shaping lives, for the good of Minnesota and the world. CLA is the largest college in the University of Minnesota system with nearly 500 world-class faculty instructing more than 12,000 undergraduate and 1,400 graduate students. CLA is home to 31 academic departments and 20+ interdisciplinary research centers in the arts, social sciences, and humanities. Learn more at cla.umn.edu.
About the School of Public Health
The University of Minnesota School of Public Health improves the health and wellbeing of populations and communities around the world by bringing innovative research, learning, and concrete actions to today's biggest health challenges. We prepare some of the most influential leaders in the field, and partner with health departments, communities, and policymakers to advance health equity for all. Learn more at sph.umn.edu.
About Boston University School of Public Health
Founded in 1976, Boston University School of Public Health is one of the top ten ranked schools of public health in the world. It offers master's- and doctoral-level education in public health. The faculty in six departments conduct policy-changing public health research around the world, with the mission of improving the health of populations-especially the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerable-locally and globally.
