This report describes the major gains in population health in the state over the last few decades, as well as key strategies and investments from the California Department of Public Health and this Administration to support thriving individuals, families, and communities. The data also underline areas in which we still have work to do to address longstanding health inequities as well as emerging threats to public health and federal actions that undermine our progress.  

The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the American Community Survey, and many other sources are used to assess Californians' health in this report. 

Key Findings: 

• All-cause mortality, cancer death rates, and cardiovascular death rates dropped to all-time lows, and life expectancy reached an all-time high, in 2024. 
• Since 2000, death rates increased among 25- to 44-year-olds but decreased among all other age groups. This increase in deaths among younger adults was driven by behavioral health and injury-related causes, especially drug overdose.
• Drug overdose deaths remain a leading cause of death but decreased substantially in 2024 for the first time in 14 years. 
• Deaths from ischemic heart disease, the leading cause of death, continued to decrease.
• Pregnancy-related mortality and severe maternal morbidity rates have worsened in recent years.
• There are important racial disparities in life expectancy, pregnancy-related mortality, and infant mortality with Black or African American populations experiencing worse outcomes compared to other groups.
• Death rates are higher in rural areas than in urban areas, and while death rates decreased in urban areas in the decade prior to the pandemic, rates increased in rural areas.
• Congenital syphilis rates decreased in 2023 and 2024 but remained substantially higher than they were a decade ago.
• Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias were the leading cause of death for older adults 85 and older. Death rates have more than doubled since 2000.
• Kidney disease deaths have increased sharply since 2000 (with slight, but encouraging, decreases in 2023 and 2024). Chronic kidney disease due to diabetes accounted for about half of all kidney disease deaths. 
• Septicemia was the leading cause of hospitalization and has been increasing. 
• There were nearly 12,500 cases of Valley fever in 2024, the highest year on record.