Cancer was the leading cause of death in Colorado in 2023

Cancer reclaimed its place as the No. 1 cause of death in Colorado last year, according to final numbers released last month by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

In 2023, 8,411 Colorado residents died from diseases classified in the vital statistics as “malignant neoplasms.” Heart disease, the second leading cause, claimed 8,071 lives.

These two causes far exceed any other cause of death in Colorado. Cancer has been number one in recent years, but heart disease was number one in 2021 and 2022.

The following table shows the 20 most common causes of death from 2018 to 2023.

COVID slides down the list

For the first time since its appearance in Colorado, COVID-19 did not make it into the top 10 causes of death last year, although it was close. With 626 deaths in 2023, COVID was the 12th leading cause of death. (In 2020 and 2021, it was the third leading cause of death.)

This reflects the decreasing severity of the pandemic. For comparison, last year a total of 371 people died from flu and pneumonia, making it the 18th leading cause of death. So COVID is still a major threat, especially for older people.

The causes and categories in this list follow the National Center for Health Statistics’ methodology, although some of the causes are a bit lumped together. Accidents, for example, include everything from car crashes to falls to unintentional drug overdoses. Grouping them together this way can obscure some of the underlying trends.

The number of deaths from accidents decreased last year, but the number of deaths from drug overdoses increased – to 1,865, of which 1,097 were related to fentanyl. The number of traffic accidents (785 deaths) and falls (1,064 deaths) decreased.

Other notable causes of death: Suicides (1,290 deaths) remained almost exactly the same as in 2022, while murders (366) decreased by almost 50.

Total deaths decreased

In total, 44,862 Colorado residents died last year. (The number includes people who lived here but died elsewhere, not people who died here but lived elsewhere.) That’s about 2,000 fewer deaths than in 2022 and nearly 3,500 fewer deaths than in 2021, Colorado’s deadliest year on record.

Relative to population size, Colorado’s death rate declined to levels closer to, but still above, pre-pandemic levels. The age-adjusted death rate in 2023 was 681.7 deaths per 100,000 residents. In the three years prior to that, the age-adjusted death rate was over 700. In the year before the pandemic, 2019, the age-adjusted rate was 635.9.

The state compiles these annual death numbers, as well as a variety of other population statistics data, into a system called the Colorado Health Information Dataset. The system has several user-friendly data dashboards for citizens interested in more specific information.