The chart shows what people died from globally, in 2019. Each box represents one cause, and its size is proportional to the number of deaths it caused.

The most common causes of death globally — shown in blue — were from ‘non-communicable diseases’.

This includes cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and chronic respiratory diseases. They tend to develop gradually over time and aren’t infectious themselves.¹

Heart diseases were the most common cause, responsible for a third of all deaths globally. Cancers were in second, causing almost one-in-five deaths. Taken together, heart diseases and cancers are the cause of every second death.

In red are infectious diseases, which are responsible for around 1-in-7 deaths. These include pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria.

A smaller share – around 4% – was from neonatal and maternal deaths. A similar share was from accidents.

Violent deaths were less common, with 1.3% dying from suicide and less than 1% dying from interpersonal violence such as homicide or battle deaths.

In this article, we cover this in more detail:

Causes of death globally: what do people die from?

To make progress towards a healthier world we need to have a good understanding of what health problems we face today.

Every child’s death is a tragedy. Globally, the scale of child mortality is immense: five million children under five die yearly. That’s around 14,000 each day.

In the chart, you can see what they die from. The size of each box corresponds to the number of children under five years old who die from each cause.

The most common causes for young children are different from the leading causes across the entire population – which was shown in the previous key insight.

Infectious diseases were most common – they kill an estimated 2.2 million children annually. They include pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, malaria, and meningitis.

Next were birth disorders, such as preterm birth, neonatal asphyxia (suffocation), and trauma, which caused an estimated 1.9 million child deaths.

Several other causes, such as heart abnormalities and malnutrition, were responsible for around 100,000 deaths each.

These figures are astonishing because many of these causes are preventable. With vaccination, basic medication, rehydration treatment, nutrition supplementation, and neonatal healthcare, a large share of child deaths could be prevented.

In this article, we cover this in more detail:

What are children dying from and what can we do about it?

Here we look at the number of children dying by each cause – from pneumonia to diarrheal diseases, malaria and malnutrition. We also present the range of interventions that are available to prevent children from dying.

What people die from has changed dramatically over time.

In the chart, you can see long-run historical trends in death rates in France.² This is shown across age groups (on the y-axis) between 1925 and 1999 (on the x-axis). The colors represent the death rates.

As you can see, the rates of some causes of death rise exponentially with age; the shades are much darker along the vertical axis.

Take respiratory diseases as an example. In 1999, people aged 40 to 44 had a death rate 24 times higher than those aged 20 to 24. For those aged 60 to 64, it was almost 440 times higher.

In contrast, external causes, which include accidents, violence, falls, and suicides, tend to rise more slowly with age. The shades get darker slowly along the vertical axis.³

Causes of death have also changed over time.

The effects of major events – such as World War Two and the AIDS epidemic – are visible on the chart. They led to large surges in death rates from external causes and infectious diseases.

Another example is that death rates from infectious diseases and respiratory diseases have declined over time – especially from the mid-20th century onwards, with the rise of antibiotics, vaccines, and public healthcare.⁴

Some causes of death are far more common in some parts of the world than others.

In poorer countries in Africa and Asia – where clean water, sanitation, and access to healthcare are lacking – people are much more likely to die from infectious diseases, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional causes.

However, in wealthier countries, people are much more likely to die from 'non-communicable diseases' instead, which include heart diseases and cancers.

This is because of two related points.

First, infectious diseases are much more common in poorer countries, and treatment is often lacking.

Second, deaths from infectious diseases were much more common in wealthier countries in the past. As these causes of death are reduced or eliminated, people tend to live longer and die from other causes instead.⁵

Therefore, the data needs to be ‘age-standardized’ to see how causes of death vary between countries, among people of the same age. In the chart, you can see an age-standardized comparison of these causes of death.

As you can see, countries with higher death rates from communicable diseases also tend to have higher death rates from non-communicable diseases.

This results from poorer healthcare, income, and living standards, which affect the chances of surviving many kinds of diseases.

You can also move the slider to see how they have shifted over time. Annual death rates have been reduced over time for both categories – but they have dropped faster for communicable diseases.

The most common way to track and understand causes of death is to rely on data from death certificates – where doctors describe the chain of events that led to each person’s death and the disease or injury that caused it.

These are registered in Vital Registration systems and shared with the World Health Organization annually.

However, in many countries, this data is lacking. You can see this in the chart.

This is because of several factors – a lack of doctors, nurses, medical records, and hospitals, and a poorly functioning Vital Registration system.

Instead, our understanding of causes of death in poor countries often comes from other studies, such as ‘verbal autopsies’, which are not conducted regularly.

To improve our understanding of causes of death worldwide, we need better-functioning Vital Registration systems, medical records, and training for doctors and nurses to collect data where it’s lacking.

In this article, we cover this in more detail:

How are causes of death registered around the world?

When people die, the cause of their death is usually officially registered in their country’s national system. How is the cause determined?

In the data we present on causes of death, we show each death as caused by a single disease, event, or injury.

However, people have often been exposed to various risk factors earlier in life, affecting their chances of premature death.

These risk factors can include behaviors – such as smoking and low exercise – and environmental factors, such as air pollution, unsafe water, and pathogens.

Researchers try to estimate the number of deaths caused by each risk factor, using available data.

For example, researchers estimate the number of deaths that could be prevented if no one smoked, by using estimates of the risk caused by smoking, and the levels of smoking in the population.⁶

In the chart, you can see the estimated number of deaths caused by a range of risk factors.⁷

The chart shows that risk factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, and air pollution are each estimated to cause millions of deaths yearly.

These risk factors are not exclusive: people can be exposed to multiple risk factors, and some are related to each other. Therefore, the numbers do not sum up to the total number of deaths.

In this article, we cover this in more detail:

How do researchers estimate the death toll caused by each risk factor, whether it’s smoking, obesity or air pollution?

Risk factors are important to understand because they can help us identify how to save lives. How do researchers estimate their impact?