Andrew Van Dam, a columnist for The Washington Post, collected and analyzed a specific dataset from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What he uncovered is a grim situation across the U.S., pointing to a surge in malnutrition-linked deaths—most of which involved U.S. adults in their senior years.
An Emerging Public Health Crisis: Malnutrition is Appearing More Frequently on Death Certificates of U.S. Seniors
A thorough analysis of death certificates encompassing a 10-year period in the United States revealed that malnutrition is now one of the leading causes of death for those over 85. While social and economic factors are considered, malnutrition is also no longer buried under other diagnoses.
Data on Malnutrition-Linked Deaths
Data from 2013 to 2024 revealed that deaths linked to malnutrition have skyrocketed by a factor of six or about 746 percent. Moreover, while this cause accounts for less than 1 percent of overall deaths in the United States, trends based on the same CDC dataset indicate that it is the fastest-growing cause of death across the country.
Note that the dataset comes from the WONDER or Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research database of the CDC. It is an easy-to-use and menu-driven system that makes data and information related to the public health resources of the CDC available to public health professionals and the public at large.
Van Dam specifically collected information from death certificates filed in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Medical examiners and physicians use the International Classification of Diseases ICD-10 codes to record the cause of death. Van Dam looked at and collected codes for protein-energy malnutrition or codes E40-E46.
The data was further broken down by age, race, and geography. This process revealed that while the trend is nationwide, it is overwhelmingly concentrated among seniors. Those aged 85 and older die from malnutrition at a rate 60 times higher than the rest of the U.S. population. Such deaths are rising twice as fast among the group.
Economic and Social Factors as Drivers
The exact reasons behind the rising deaths linked to malnutrition in the United States, including the specific reasons why U.S. seniors are most affected, remain unclear. Van Dam notes that the phenomenon tends to affect somewhat more people in lower-income states and among individuals with less educational attainment in general.
He underscored that the relationship between the aforementioned factors and the deaths linked to malnutrition is not as strong as one would think. A deeper dive into the dataset and other relevant data suggests that there seems to be little or negligible relation to state-specific measures of food insecurity or the use of food stamps.
A 2024 report from Feeding America noted that nearly 12 million U.S. adults ages 50 and over experienced food insecurity in 2022. Research from the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture also revealed that more than 9 percent of American households with older adults were food insecure in 2023.
The National Council on Aging identified certain demographic groups within and living conditions of the senior population that are at higher risk of food insecurity. For example, those with disabilities are more than twice as likely to be food insecure as those without. The same is true for Black and Hispanic seniors in comparison to white seniors.
Researchers E. Beza et al. echoed the same aforementioned risk factors but also added that seniors living with a grandchild are 2.2 times more likely to be food insecure. Moreover, seniors who do not have their own homes, particularly those who rent, are about 3 times more likely to experience hunger than homeowners of the same age.
Assumptions and Notable Implications
Some assumptions can be formed from the data and information above. For example, because most retirees live on a fixed income while facing increasing living costs due to inflation, they are often forced to choose between basic needs and nutritious foods. Seniors also struggle with the physical demands of grocery shopping and cooking.
Moreover, according to Van Dam, while the realities of hunger are worsening, part of the trend in the data is a change in how doctors diagnose and record deaths. In the past, malnutrition was often seen as a symptom of a broader decline. However, since 2010, it has been diagnosed as a standalone condition or main risk factor.
The rise in malnutrition deaths correlates with increases in other chronic conditions. Both cognitive decline and depression or other mental health conditions can lead to a loss of appetite, poor eating habits, or the inability to manage meals. Nutritional deficiencies are increasingly linked to the worsening of cardiovascular health.
Nevertheless, from what can be gathered, there is no single smoking gun explaining the increasing deaths in the U.S. linked to malnutrition, as well as the reason why American seniors are mostly affected. It is possible that the surge is a combination of deteriorating economic conditions for the elderly and a shift in medical record-keeping.
FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. n.d. CDC WONDER. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available online
- Feeding America. 17 July 2024. “Feeding America Research Finds Nearly 12 Million Adults Ages 50 and Over Experienced Food Insecurity in 2022.” Feeding America. Available online
- Monroe-Lord, L., Ardakani, A., Schweitzer, A., Asongwed, E., Duan, X., Jeffery, T., Jackson, P., Harrison, E., and Beza, E. 2025. “Demographic Determinants of Food Insecurity in Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Nutrients. 17(18): 2934. DOI: 3390/nu17182934
- National Council on Aging. 31 October 2025. “Get the Facts on SNAP and Senior Hunger.” Aging in America. National Council on Aging. Available online
- Reed-Jones, M. 18 March 2025. “More than 9 Percent of U.S. Households with Older Adults Were Food Insecure in 2023.” Economic Research Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Available online
- Van Dam, A. 5 January 2026. “Why are Malnutrition Deaths Soaring in America?” The Washington Post. Available online