Leading Causes of Death in Males

Key points

  • Male 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 Males 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 male 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 (pg.21): National Vital Statistics Reports Volume 73, Number 4 April 8, 2024.

All races and origins, males, 2021

The ten leading causes of death in males represent 1,838,108 deaths, 53.1% of the total number of reported male deaths for all races and Hispanic origins and ages.

Leading causes of death by ethnicity

The leading causes of deaths for males 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 and full terms for leading causes of death
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