U.S. death rate increases for 1st time since 2005

For the first time in over a decade, death rates in the United States are on the rise. The death rate in 2015 was 729.5 deaths per 100,000 people — up from 723.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2014. Typically, death rates decline each year because of improvements in medical technology and preventative care, The New York Times reports. But in 2015, death rates climbed due to more deaths from drug overdoses, suicide, and Alzheimer's disease, as well as a slight uptick in the death rate from heart disease. Experts say it's "quite rare" to see mortality rates increase across the whole population.

"It's an uptick in mortality and that doesn't usually happen, so it's significant," Robert Anderson, the chief of mortality statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, said. "But the question is, what does it mean? We really need more data to know. If we start looking at 2016 and we see another rise, we'll be a lot more concerned."

The last time the U.S. death rate increased was 2005, due largely to a bad flu season.

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