Leading Causes of Death in Teens
As the nation has experienced heartbreaking losses of children, youth and family members in countless mass shootings in recent years, much public discussion has focused on how we can work together to reduce gun violence in the United States. The tragic reality is that too many young people are dying from preventable causes every day, including accidents, homicides and suicides — the leading causes of teen deaths in America. Fortunately, the latest data in the KIDS COUNT® Data Center show that the teenage death rate due to these leading causes declined in 2022, after sharply rising in 2020 and 2021.
This post breaks down statistics on causes of death among adolescents. It explores demographic inequities for certain groups and recent trends on preventable deaths among teens, including:
the number one cause of death for teenagers;
causes of death for teens;
causes of death in adolescence; and
teenage death statistics.
Overall Teenage Death Statistics
The U.S. teen death rate from all causes fell by nearly 50% between 1990 (the earliest year available in the KIDS COUNT Data Center) and 2013, from 88 deaths per 100,000 teens ages 15 to 19 down to 45 per 100,000, the lowest rate on record in three decades. While many factors contribute to death rates, including access to health care and other resources, community safety and physical and mental health, the drop in teen mortality is largely due to public health successes to reduce motor vehicle accidents.
After 2013, however, the adolescent death rate began to climb and then dramatically spiked in 2020 and 2021, peaking at 62 deaths per 100,000 teens. This trend may be changing, though, as the 2022 rate declined to 59 per 100,000. The recent spike in teen deaths meant 13,407 young lives were lost in 2021, and although a decrease occurred in 2022, the nation still lost 12,745 more youth that year. The overall rise in teenage deaths (by number and rate) in the last decade was driven by three leading causes, discussed below.
How do adolescent death rates vary by state?
Certain states had particularly high teen death rates in 2022, including Alaska with 111 per 100,000 youth ages 15 to 19, Montana with 108 per 100,000 and Louisiana with 100 per 100,000 — the only states where rates reached 100 or above that year. Even in states with lower rates, many deviated from the national trend in 2022, with rates continuing to surge rather than decline. For instance, the following seven states and D.C. experienced large jumps in rates of teenage deaths from 2021 to 2022:
- Oregon: from 49 to 62 deaths per 100,000 teens ages 15 to 19;
- D.C.: from 73 to 85 per 100,000;
- New Mexico: from 88 to 99 per 100,000;
- Maryland: from 49 to 60 per 100,000;
- Nebraska: from 53 to 63 per 100,000;
- Alaska: from 103 to 111 per 100,000;
- Arkansas: from 79 to 87 per 100,000; and
- Missouri: from 83 to 89 per 100,000.
What Are the Leading Causes of Death in Adolescents?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the three leading causes of mortality among adolescents ages 15 to 19 are:
- accidents or unintentional injuries (e.g., car crashes and poisonings, including overdoses): 22 deaths per 100,000 teens in 2022;
- homicides: 13 per 100,000; and
- suicides: 10 per 100,000.
Teen Deaths Due to Accidents: Rise in Drug Poisoning and Overdoses
Accidents or unintentional injuries have been the number one cause of teenage deaths for decades, although CDC data show that this rate fell by half at the beginning of the century, from 35 per 100,000 in 2002 to 17 per 100,000 in 2013, largely due to reduced motor vehicle crashes. Since then, unfortunately, the rate began to rise and sharply increased in 2020 and 2021, reaching 24 deaths per 100,000 adolescents, before declining slightly to 22 per 100,000 in 2022.
Providing insight into these trends, the underlying causes of unintentional or accidental teen deaths have shifted over the last two decades: An increasing share are due to drug overdoses and poisoning, while a decreasing share are due to car crashes. Poisoning and drug overdoses made up 31% of accidental teen deaths in 2022, up from 7% in 2002. During the same period, the share of these deaths due to motor vehicle collisions fell from 77% to 55%. The nation’s leading health organizations are urging policymakers and others to take further action to address the troubling rise in overdoses among teens and other age groups.
Teen Homicides: Firearms Are Driving Increases
Unlike the trends above, the homicide rate for teens did not decline in 2022 but remained at its highest level in more than 20 years: 13 homicides per 100,000 youth ages 15 to 19, according to the CDC. Prior to 2022, though, the adolescent homicide trend generally mirrored that of unintentional injury deaths. That is, in 2014, teen deaths due to homicides began climbing after improving for many years. Then, in 2020, the rate jumped by 33% from nine homicides per 100,000 teens in 2019 to 12 per 100,000. It inched up farther in 2021 to 13 per 100,000 and remained there in 2022.
A deeper dive into the data reveals that the recent rise in youth homicides was primarily driven by firearms. Like the overall teen homicide trend, the number and rate of teen homicides due to firearms, specifically, surged in 2020, continued to increase in 2021 and held steady in 2022. Additionally, when looking at all causes of adolescent homicides over the past 20 years, an increasing share have been due to guns — from 83% in 2002 to 95% in 2022.
In recent years, gun violence for any reason has become the specific leading cause of death for teens, young adults ages 20 to 24 and adults 25 to 34. In 2022, it also became the specific leading cause of mortality for younger children ages 5 to 14.
Teen Suicide Rate Declines in 2022
Following a different trajectory from other leading causes of death, the adolescent suicide rate peaked in 2017 at 12 per 100,000 youth ages 15 to 19, after steadily increasing over the previous decade. This upward trend changed course after 2017, with the rate dipping slightly in subsequent years and then declining from 11 per 100,000 in 2021 to 10 per 100,000 in 2022.
About half of teen suicides were by firearm in recent years, with 49% caused by guns in 2022, up from 42% a decade ago in 2012. Youth suicides, and mental health more broadly, continue to be a national crisis, with access to care a serious barrier for many young people and families.
Continued Inequities in Teen Deaths by Race and Ethnicity
One thing has not changed in decades: Black and American Indian youth have the highest death rates of all racial and ethnic groups. (Note that limited disaggregated data by race and ethnicity, such as for Asian and Pacific Islander populations, prevent a full comparison of death rates across all groups.) The KIDS COUNT Data Center provides the teen death rate from all causes by race and ethnicity:
- Black teen death rate: 111 per 100,000 in 2022, a decline from 121 per 100,000 in 2021, but it remains almost twice the national rate and an alarming increase from 78 per 100,000 in 2018 (the earliest year available in the KIDS COUNT Data Center).
- American Indian or Alaska Native teen death rate: 84 per 100,000 in 2022, a substantial increase from 59 per 100,000 in 2018.
- Latino teen death rate: 55 per 100,000 in 2022, about even with the previous two years and remains just below the national rate, but up from 41 per 100,000 in 2018.
- White teen death rate: 49 per 100,000 in 2022, an improvement from 52 per 100,000 in 2021, after increasing two years in a row.
- Two or more races: The death rate for multiracial teens inched up steadily from 2018 to 2021, peaking at 39 per 100,000 and then dropping to 30 per 100,000 in 2022.
- Asian and Pacific Islander teens: The death rate rose slightly over this five-year period, from 25 per 100,000 in 2018 to 28 per 100,000 in 2022.
According to the CDC, accidents or unintentional injuries remain the leading cause of death for American Indian or Alaska Native, Latino, white and multiracial adolescents. Among Asian teens ages 15 to 19, the leading cause of death continues to be suicide. This is true for Asian teenagers whether data are combined with Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander (NHPI) youth or provided as a separate race category. Death rates for NHPI teens as a separate category are considered unreliable by the CDC due to small numbers. However, other data reveal concerning rises in both NHPI and Asian youth reports of suicidal thoughts and depression-related feelings.
Data also show that American Indian or Alaska Native adolescents have the highest suicide rates among all racial and ethnic groups and the highest rates of firearm suicide, specifically. In addition, researchers have flagged large increases in suicide rates among Black youth in recent years.
The leading cause of death for Black teenagers ages 15 to 19 is homicide. A 2023 analysis by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions underscores that young Black and Latino males, particularly young Black males, are disproportionately victims of gun homicides and that just over half of all deaths among Black teens are due to firearms. These racial disparities are perpetuated by systemic inequities, such as:
- socioeconomic inequality;
- lack of access to opportunities;
- under-resourced neighborhoods; and
- discrimination.
Continued Disparities in Teen Deaths by Gender
For all three leading causes of death in adolescence, males die at much higher rates than females.* For instance, according to 2022 teenage death statistics from the CDC:
- The rate of unintentional injury deaths for males ages 15 to 19 is more than twice that of their female counterparts: 30 per 100,000 versus 14 per 100,000, respectively.
- The homicide rate for male teens is more than four times the rate for females: 22 per 100,000 compared to four per 100,000. This is the second leading cause of death for males ages 15 to 19 and the third for females.
- While suicide is the third leading cause of death for male youth in this age group and the second for females, the male suicide rate remains three times higher than the female rate: 15 per 100,000 versus five per 100,000. However, a recent 40-year review of adolescent suicides found that increases in female suicide rates have significantly reduced this gender gap.
These disparities have persisted for many years and exist for older and younger age groups, too. Some death rates have worsened for young males in recent years, as well. A 2024 analysis, for example, found that the rate of all deaths due to firearms increased by 50% for male children and teens from 2018 to 2022, while the same rate for female youth remained fairly level and much lower.
The driving forces behind these gender differences are not fully known. Researchers have proposed a range of biological, behavioral and social factors that may be contributing to higher rates of preventable deaths among young males. Some explanations include differences in gender role socialization, impulsivity and “perceived or real higher levels of aggression in males” that could lead to higher-risk behavior. The reasons for the disparities likely vary by cause of death, as well. In the case of suicides, female adolescents are more likely to consider and attempt suicide, although males are more likely to commit suicide because they tend to use more lethal methods.
Each loss of life is a tragedy and takes an emotional and economic toll on families and communities. We know that it’s possible to reduce preventable deaths, and each individual, sector and level of government can take steps to reverse these concerning trends among youth in our communities. Keep reading below for information on strategies for action.
Access More Resources and Stay Connected
Find all death-related statistics in the KIDS COUNT Data Center. The teen deaths indicator is included in the Child Well-Being Index, as part of the KIDS COUNT Data Book.
Also, check out the Foundation’s report on improving community safety through the use of public health strategies.
Sign up for our newsletters to get the latest data, reports and other resources.
