New CDC data show frequent fatigue affected 16.6% of U.S. adults in 2024, with women and adults ages 18 to 34 reporting substantially higher rates than men and adults 65 and older.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Younger Americans and women reported frequent fatigue at notably higher rates than older adults and men in 2024, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study examining how often U.S. adults experience persistent physical or mental exhaustion.
Researchers with the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics found that 16.6% of adults experienced fatigue frequently during the year. The difference between men and women was pronounced: 20% of women reported frequent fatigue compared with 13% of men.
Age produced another significant divide. Adults ages 18 to 34 recorded the highest prevalence, at 19.5%, while 12.9% of adults 65 and older said they frequently experienced fatigue.
The findings suggest that persistent tiredness is not concentrated among older Americans despite the physical changes commonly associated with aging. Instead, the youngest adult age group included in the analysis reported frequent symptoms at the highest rate.
Fatigue of some degree was far more widespread than the frequent-fatigue figures alone indicate. Overall, 71.5% of U.S. adults said they had experienced fatigue on at least some days during the previous three months.
“Despite the association with health and well-being, the frequency of fatigue symptoms in the general U.S. population is an underexplored topic,” the researchers said.
Geography also appeared to matter. Adults living in the South and Midwest reported frequent fatigue at higher rates than those in other regions, according to the NCHS analysis.
The agency defined fatigue broadly as “generally defined as physical or mental tiredness or exhaustion that does not improve with additional sleep or rest.”
Researchers emphasized, however, that their analysis was designed to measure the prevalence of fatigue rather than determine why individual participants experienced it.
The CDC said the report’s primary focus “is on fatigue symptoms themselves and not the underlying causes of fatigue or fatigue associated with specific medical conditions.”
Dr. Alana A. Lewis, a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine’s Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute in Chicago, told NBC News that the overall findings were “not unexpected.”
“Just living in this country, we all, at some point, feel fatigue,” Lewis said.
Fatigue can arise from a wide range of circumstances rather than a single cause. Medical conditions and illnesses can contribute, as can lifestyle habits, workplace difficulties, grief and psychological stress, according to Better Health Channel.
Because the NCHS study did not investigate those underlying explanations, its findings do not establish why women reported fatigue more often than men or why younger adults recorded higher rates than people 65 and older.
Instead, the report provides a national snapshot of how widespread the symptom has become and which demographic groups report it most frequently.
Researchers based the estimates on responses from the 2024 National Health Interview Survey, examining adults ages 18 and older across the United States.
The resulting data show a substantial distinction between occasional and persistent fatigue: more than seven in 10 adults experienced tiredness on at least some days during the measured period, while about one in six reported experiencing it frequently.
Women had the higher frequent-fatigue rate by sex, while adults ages 18 to 34 had the highest rate by age. Adults 65 and older reported the lowest prevalence among the age groups highlighted in the study, underscoring what researchers described as a still-underexplored health and well-being issue across the U.S. population.
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