States Ranked by Age adjusted COVID Deaths - Updated April 20 - See table for more details

States Ranked by Age-Adjusted COVID Deaths

Data updated on December 7, 2022

We’re inundated with statistics on how US states have fared relative to one another throughout the pandemic. Sometimes these can appear contradictory because the data can be cut to support a variety of narratives. We wanted an updated source of cumulative age-adjusted COVID-19 deaths by state, as death is an important measure of the impact of a pandemic, and states have adopted widely divergent policies.

While COVID-19 deaths are usually adjusted for state population (deaths per 100,000), they are usually not adjusted for the age distribution of a state. It’s important to adjust for age when considering state-to-state differences in outcomes as age is the dominant risk factor for death provided someone is infected with COVID, and state age distributions vary considerably. In the following analysis, we present age-adjusted cumulative COVID-19 deaths and rank each state plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia accordingly. We generated the plot and table using the CDC’s Provisional COVID-19 Death Counts by Sex, Age, and State database, which sourced its data from death certificates. These numbers are more consistently processed across states, though they may differ slightly from other sources. 

 

Bubble areas are proportional to state populations and the horizontal arrangement is arbitrary to reduce overlap.

Here we see dramatic state-to-state differences in cumulative age-adjusted COVID deaths per capita to date, spanning a range of over five fold. In the end, some states that adopted dramatically divergent policies had comparable outcomes (Florida and California, for example).

Mississippi is exceptionally high. A few regional clusters have fared markedly better than the rest: Vermont, New Hampshire & Maine, Oregon & Washington, and Hawaii & Puerto Rico.

Why do COVID deaths vary by state? 

Explore the relationships between age-adjusted COVID deaths and several state-level metrics including: vaccination coverage, obesity rate, the strictness of COVID policy and more. 

Explore the Data

 

Age-Adjusted COVID Deaths Ranking

State

COVID-19 Deaths per 100,000

Age-Adjusted COVID-19 Deaths per 100,000

1 Mississippi 474 486
2 Oklahoma 438 447
3 Kentucky 416 420
3 Tennessee 415 420
5 Texas 344 412
6 Alabama 417 410
7 Nevada 379 403
8 Arkansas 397 385
8 New Mexico 399 385
10 Indiana 377 384
11 Ohio 399 380
12 Louisiana 363 378
13 North Dakota 388 377
13 West Virginia 430 377
15 Arizona 394 375
16 Georgia 325 371
17 New York 391 370
18 South Carolina 378 369
19 New Jersey 381 367
20 District of Columbia 300 354
21 South Dakota 371 351
22 Missouri 359 343
23 Pennsylvania 389 342
24 Michigan 349 333
25 Montana 353 324
25 Rhode Island 363 324
27 Kansas 327 321
28 Idaho 299 315
29 North Carolina 303 308
30 Wyoming 301 302
31 Florida 357 299
32 Iowa 327 298
33 Delaware 326 297
34 Connecticut 330 295
35 Illinois 289 289
36 Maryland 278 286
37 Colorado 250 285
38 California 258 275
39 Nebraska 276 272
40 Massachusetts 287 270
41 Virginia 251 262
42 Wisconsin 273 260
43 Alaska 192 253
44 Minnesota 250 246
45 Utah 173 231
46 Oregon 197 190
46 Washington 179 190
48 New Hampshire 205 189
49 Maine 215 180
50 Puerto Rico 167 143
51 Vermont 130 114
52 Hawaii 120 106

Calculation 

We determined the age adjusted mortality per 100,000 people (maa) for each state using the formula:

m_aa = SUM (D_x * P_x / (N_x * 100,000))

Where Dx is the total deaths in age group x in the state, Nx is the total population in age group x in the state, and Px is the percent of the population in age group x in the United States.

Citations

COVID deaths from CDC: “Provisional COVID-19 Death Counts by Sex, Age, and State” (Updated on December 7, 2022)

Population data from U.S. Census Bureau: “State Population by Characteristics: 2010-2019”