New mortality data show that life expectancy in the U.S. has not improved
Historically, County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R) has released new datasets of over 80 measures for nearly every county in the nation once a year. We have moved outside of this annual cycle to provide updated data when they are available.
In September 2025, CHR&R released updated data for some clinical measures, including primary care physicians and mental health providers. This month, CHR&R updated 12 measures related to county-level mortality. These measures include:
- Premature death
- Life expectancy
- Premature age-adjusted mortality
- Child mortality
- Infant mortality
- Suicides
- Drug overdose deaths
- Injury deaths
- Homicides
- Motor vehicle crash deaths
- Firearm fatalities
- Alcohol-impaired driving deaths
These data include the latest available national death records from 2023, which we obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Although the mortality data have been refreshed, the health groups, areas of strength and areas to explore will remain the same in the county-level snapshots. Each snapshot will now include a note about this recent update for the 12 mortality measures:
The updated data show that overall life expectancy in the U.S. has not seen meaningful gains in the last several decades. Community conditions impact life expectancy and death rates, and this is visible in the data, including for infant mortality. Even newborn babies are burdened by the inequities of our systems, structures and environment.
Our 2025 University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute Model of Health can help you understand the role that power and rules — such as policies, budgets, culture and norms — play in determining the conditions that shape health. We also encourage users to investigate the racial disaggregation of the supplemental mortality data to further view how the unjust and inequitable distribution of these conditions shape health.
Download the newly updated mortality data or view it in your snapshot on our website. We plan to refresh our datasets at least one more time in 2026, so sign up for our newsletter and stay informed.
