Topic
Influenza & pneumonia
Influenza and pneumonia death rates were extremely high in the early 20th century and far lower in modern decades. Recent leading-cause tables do not publish a value for every year on this page — missing years are gaps.
The 1918 pandemic era towers above later years on the long chart. That spike is part of the official historical series, not an illustration.
Extension beyond 2018 is limited to years where extracted NCHS leading-cause tables published an influenza-and-pneumonia rate (2019–2020 on this build). Later years are gaps, not zeros — this page is not extended to 2024.
Influenza & pneumonia: age-adjusted death rate
Deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population · Age-adjusted (2000 U.S. standard for modern years)
Breaks to watch: expanding Death Registration Area until 1933; multiple ICD revisions (including ICD-10 in 1999); source segment change after 2018 (Data Briefs). This is not one seamless identically defined series. Latest final year on this page’s series: 2020 (recent brief years with published influenza-and-pneumonia rates on this build).
Data table & download
Source: NCHS major-cause historical file (1900–2018); 2019–2024 from NCHS Data Briefs 427, 456, 521, 548 (this cause’s recent points stop earlier — see note below)
How to read this chart
- Do not read the long line as one uninterrupted, identically defined series. NCHS itself warns that ICD revisions may create discontinuities in cause-of-death trends.
- Geography: for 1900–1932, vital statistics cover the expanding Death Registration Area (not all U.S. states). Beginning 1933, tables are for the United States as a whole (HIST293 / NCHS historical notes).
- ICD revisions (including but not limited to transitions into ICD-7/8/9 and the 1999 ICD-10 transition) can jump rates for coding reasons. A marker is shown at 1933 (national registration) and 1999 (ICD-10). Earlier revision years are called out in the methods text rather than falsely smoothed.
- Age standard: portal metadata states rates after 1998 use the 2000 U.S. standard population; pre-1999 points come from NCHS historical data that HIST293 describes as recalculated to the 2000 standard for selected-cause tables. Still treat century-scale moves as directional NCHS trend indexes.
- Source segments: 1900–2018 from NCHS dataset 6rkc-nb2q; 2019–2024 appended from NCHS Mortality Data Briefs (427/456/521/548) using ICD-10 leading-cause groups and deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population. Table segment labels keep those sources distinct.
- Cause titles in the historical file are short labels (Heart Disease, Cancer, Stroke, Accidents, Influenza and Pneumonia). Recent brief tables use ICD-10 rankable groups (e.g., Diseases of heart; Malignant neoplasms; Accidents V01–X59, Y85–Y86).
- Influenza and pneumonia recent rates appear only for years published in the extracted leading-cause tables used here (2019–2020). Later years are gaps, not zeros.
- These are population death rates (underlying cause), not disease progression in individual patients, and not incidence or prevalence.
- Pneumonia can be a terminal event for other illnesses; underlying-cause rules affect what is counted here.