Cancer reclaimed the top spot as Colorado’s No.1 killer last year, according to finalized numbers released last month by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

In 2023, 8,411 Coloradans died from what are known in vital statistics records as “malignant neoplasms.” Heart disease, the second-leading cause, claimed 8,071 lives.

Those two causes far exceed any other cause of death in Colorado. Cancer has been No. 1 for most recent years, but heart disease held the top spot in 2021 and 2022.

The chart below shows the top 20 causes of death from 2018 through 2023.

COVID falls down the list

For the first time since it appeared in Colorado, COVID-19 didn’t crack the top 10 causes of death last year, though 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.)

That reflects the waning severity of the pandemic. But, for comparison, influenza and pneumonia combined last year killed 371 people, ranking 18th, so COVID is still very much a threat, especially to older populations.

The causes and categories in this list follow the methodology of the National Center for Health Statistics, though some of the causes are a bit of a mashup. Accidents, for instance, encompass everything from car crashes to falls to unintentional drug overdoses. Lumping them together like that can obscure some of the underlying trends.

Accidental deaths declined last year, but drug overdose deaths were up — to 1,865, of which 1,097 involved fentanyl. Motor vehicle accidents (785 deaths) and falls (1,064 deaths) were down.

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

Deaths dropped overall

Overall, 44,862 Coloradans died last year. (The figure includes people who lived here but died elsewhere and not people who died here but lived elsewhere.) That’s roughly 2,000 fewer deaths than in 2022, and it’s nearly 3,500 fewer deaths than in 2021, Colorado’s deadliest year on record.

Relative to population size, Colorado’s death rate fell to something closer to — but still higher than — pre-pandemic levels. The age-adjusted death rate was 681.7 deaths per every 100,000 population in 2023. The three years before that had seen age-adjusted death rates in the 700s. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, the age-adjusted rate was 635.9.

The state compiles these annual death numbers, as well as a host of other vital statistics data, in a system called the Colorado Health Information Dataset. The system has several easy-to-use data dashboards for members of the public interested in more specific information.