In the past two decades, the gap in death rates between blacks and whites narrowed dramatically -- going from 33 percent in 1999 to 16 percent in 2015, said the report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The death rate for blacks alone fell 25 percent in that time period.
Despite these advances, younger black men still tend to die far younger than whites, according to the CDC report, describing this trend as a "concern."
"Blacks in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are more likely to live with or die from conditions that typically occur at older ages in whites, including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes," said a CDC statement.
The CDC's Vital Signs report found that blacks aged 35-64 are 50 percent more likely to have high blood pressure than whites.
It also said blacks aged 18-49 are two times as likely to die from heart disease as whites.
Cancer was far more often a killer among African-Americans, who "have the highest death rate for all cancers combined compared with whites," said the report.
Violence contributed to the gap, too, with blacks aged 18-34 nine times more likely than whites of the ame age to die from homicide.
"Notably, the death rates for homicide among blacks did not change over the 17 years of the study," said the report.
