Key points
- Female death data were retrieved from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) Report: Leading Causes of Deaths for 2021.
- Charts for the Leading Causes of Death for Females represent all reported deaths for all races and Hispanic origin, and separate charts for race and Hispanic origin for all ages.
About LCOD Data
CDC's Office of Women's Health (OWH) extracted all female data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) Report: Leading Causes of Deaths for 2021. For more details and accurate information on the number of deaths reported for each race and Hispanic origin, refer to the NVSS Report Table 1 (page 24): National Vital Statistics Reports Volume 73, Number 4 April 8, 2024.
All races and origins, females, 2021
The ten leading causes of death in females represent 1,626,123 deaths, 46.9% of the total number of reported female deaths for all races and Hispanic origins and ages.
Leading causes of death by ethnicity
The leading causes of death for females were analyzed by race and Hispanic origin for all ages. For more information on race and Hispanic origin classification see the Technical Notes Section of Deaths: Leading Causes for 2021 (page 113).
Short and full terms
| Short Term | Full Term |
|---|---|
| Accidents | Unintentional Injuries |
| Cancer | Malignant Neoplasms |
| COVID-19 | Coronavirus Disease 2019 |
| Diabetes | Diabetes Mellitus |
| Heart Disease | Disease of the Heart |
| Homicide | Assault |
| Hypertension | Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease |
| Kidney Disease | Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis |
| Stroke | Cerebrovascular disease |
| Suicide | Intentional self-harm |
- Footnote for American Indian/Alaska Native non-Hispanic