This document is a supplement to “Data Brief: 2020 and 2021 Increases in Deaths in California (7.1.2022)”, and provides an update with data through 2022. The charts and tables below are through 2022 with text focusing on observations pertinent to 2022. Please see the original Data Brief for an overall summary, comments on 2020 and 2021 observations, detailed methods, conclusions, and a section of exploratory material.
New observations based on 2022 excess mortality data include:
In 2022, the number of deaths and age-adjusted death rates remained higher than the prepandemic baseline of 2019, but decreased relative to 2021.
In Quarter 1 of 2022, the increase in death rate (compared to the 2017-2019 mean baseline) exceeded 20% among Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, Latinos, and American Indian/Alaska Natives.
Very substantial increases in death rates were seen in conditions other than COVID-19, including drug overdoses, obesity, homicide, and malnutrition. Increase of over 20% were seen for all these conditions in 2022 compared to the prepandemic baseline.
Reflecting the patterns above, with only a few exceptions, increases in 2022 for all racial/ethnic groups were smaller than the corresponding increases in 2020 and 2021.
However, there was a large increase among NH/PI (31.7%) in Quarter 1 of 2022 compared to the baseline.
Death rates decreased in Quarter 2 among Blacks (-1.8%), Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (-7.9%), and Whites (-4.3%), and in Quarter 4 among Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (-2.2%).
Compared to 2019, increases in death rates of over 25% were seen for drug overdoses, malnutrition, obesity, homicide, and alcohol-related in 2022.
Compared to 2019, the absolute number of deaths increased by over 1,000 for Alzheimer’s disease, drug overdoses, ischemic heart disease, hypertensive heart disease, stroke, kidney diseases, alcohol-related, and diabetes in 2022.
Compared to 2019, deaths caused by hepatitis, COPD, pneumonia, influenza, lung cancer, and valve disorders all decreased by more than 10% in 2022.
Figure 4 below shows the trend from 2010 to 2022 of annual death rates for the causes with large increases noted above, and other selected leading causes of death.
Deaths from COVID-19 decreased sharply between 2021 and 2022, falling from the leading cause of death to the fourth leading.
Other notable 2022 trends include an encouraging leveling off of drug overdose deaths, and decreases in alcohol-related deaths and homicides.