Glossary

Ordinary words such as stroke, malaria, tuberculosis and HIV are left to themselves. A longer account of how to read a country card is in Why Germany looks deadlier than Kenya. Where the atlas figures come from is on the methodology page.

Alzheimer's disease and other dementias

Illnesses that progressively damage memory and thinking. Alzheimer's disease is the largest. Almost all of the deaths are in old age. A country can record more of them when doctors become more willing to name dementia on a certificate, rather than the pneumonia that came last.

Cancers (all sites)

Every malignant tumour counted as one cause: lung, bowel, breast, stomach and the rest. The atlas uses this single group in every country. Splitting cancers by site makes heart disease or stroke look like the leading cause in places where all cancers together are larger. Several diseases, one slot is about the dashboard counter, which is the same grouping.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Lasting damage to the airways, usually from tobacco smoke or polluted air, that makes breathing progressively harder. Emphysema and chronic bronchitis sit in this group. It is narrower than the older American label "chronic lower respiratory disease", which also takes in asthma.

Cirrhosis of the liver

Scarring of the liver that ends in liver failure. Alcohol, hepatitis viruses and fatty liver disease are the common paths into it. The atlas uses the whole group, not one of those paths.

Collective violence

Deaths in armed conflict, and deaths caused by police or other authorities in the course of their duties. The WHO name for the group is collective violence and legal intervention. It is separate from interpersonal violence, which is one person killing another. On the atlas it appears only when the 2023 estimates rank it among a country's largest external causes. It is a cause group in that source, not a report of a particular war.

Crude death rate

Deaths in a year for every thousand people, with no allowance for whether the population is old or young. An older country holds more funerals. That is not the same as being more dangerous at a given age. Why Germany looks deadlier than Kenya is the worked example. To compare danger, use life expectancy or an age-standardised rate.

Diabetes mellitus

A lasting failure to keep the sugar in the blood within a safe range. Over years it damages the heart, the kidneys, the eyes and the nerves. "Mellitus" is the medical qualifier that separates this disease from unrelated conditions that happen to share the word diabetes. A death can be coded here, or to the heart attack or kidney failure that followed it, depending on what the certificate names as the underlying cause.

Diarrhoeal diseases

Severe diarrhoea, usually from infection in food or water. The deaths are mostly in young children, and mostly from dehydration. The atlas uses the British spelling. The WHO tables spell it the same way.

Drug use disorders

Deaths the WHO source attributes to dependence on a drug, including medicines and illegal drugs. In practice this is where that source puts fatal overdose. It is classified as an illness, not as an injury, so it sits with the illness candidates and not in the external-cause column. Unintentional poisonings are a different and much smaller line. In the 2023 estimates the drug-use share is 3.4% of deaths in the United States and 3.1% in Canada. Both are larger than any single injury in those countries, and both are still smaller than the fifth-ranked illness, so neither card shows the line.

External causes

Deaths from injury rather than from disease. On the atlas the group is road injuries, falls, drowning, fire and burns, poisonings, natural disasters, self-harm, interpersonal violence and collective violence. Intentional deaths are included. Suicide is not an accident, which is why the column is not called accidents. Firearm deaths are not a separate cause. A firearm suicide is self-harm. A firearm homicide is interpersonal violence.

Hypertensive heart disease

Heart disease caused by long-standing high blood pressure: the heart wall thickens, or the heart fails, without the artery blockage that defines ischaemic heart disease. The two are easy to confuse on a certificate, and countries differ in which one they write down.

Ill-defined causes

Deaths whose certificate does not name a cause the tally can use. Every mortality file has this remainder. It is a hole in the record, not a disease, which is why the unlisted toll explains it and does not give it a counter.

Interpersonal violence

One person killing another: homicide and fatal assault. It excludes self-harm, and it excludes deaths in war, which are collective violence. The counter on the unlisted toll uses 440,000 deaths a year, the average for 2019 to 2021 in the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's Global Study on Homicide 2023. If this is a difficult thing to read about, findahelpline.com lists free, confidential support in most countries.

Ischaemic heart disease

Disease in which the heart muscle receives too little blood, usually because the coronary arteries have narrowed. A heart attack is the form most people know. It is a part of heart disease, not the whole of it. Heart failure, hypertensive heart disease and other circulatory deaths are counted elsewhere, which is why this share is smaller than a headline that says "heart disease".

Kidney diseases

Deaths from kidney failure and other kidney disease, including long-term damage that leaves the kidneys less able to filter the blood. Chronic kidney disease is the largest part. Diabetes and high blood pressure are common reasons the damage starts. The WHO group used here is a little wider than chronic kidney disease alone.

Life expectancy

The average years a newborn would live if the death rate at each age stayed as it was in the year being measured. It is a snapshot of one year, not a forecast for anyone alive now. What life expectancy actually measures sets the calculation out.

Lower respiratory infections

Infections of the lungs and the lower airways. Pneumonia is the largest of them. In a young population they are often a leading cause in their own right. In an old population the same infection is often the last event of dementia or frailty, and the certificate may name the earlier illness instead.

Maternal conditions

Deaths during pregnancy or within a period after the end of pregnancy, from a cause related to the pregnancy or its management. The counter on the unlisted toll uses about 260,000 such deaths in 2023. That figure is from Trends in maternal mortality 2000 to 2023, published jointly by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNFPA, the World Bank and the United Nations Population Division. The same release gives a global maternal mortality ratio of 197 deaths per 100,000 live births. The counter uses the count of deaths, not that ratio.

Natural disasters

Deaths from earthquakes, floods, storms and other natural hazards. The WHO file counts them as an injury, alongside road injuries and falls, not as a disease. In the 2023 estimates this is the largest external cause in Libya, about a quarter of all deaths, and it is 9.5% of deaths in Turkey. One catastrophe can do that in a single year. It is not a typical year, and it is not a ranking of which country is more dangerous in ordinary time.

Neonatal disorders

Illness and injury in the first 28 days of life: being born too early, lack of oxygen during birth, and infection in those first weeks. The WHO name for the group is neonatal conditions. The atlas says disorders, and means that group. The number that says the most about a country explains why these deaths pull life expectancy down so hard. The counter uses 2.3 million a year, the WHO figure for 2022, and it is set out in the unlisted toll.

Nutritional deficiencies

Deaths attributed to a lack of food or of a specific nutrient. The methodology names them among the lines the first two columns leave out. There is no counter, because this site does not yet have a total it is willing to tick. Why some lines do not tick.

Poisonings

Unintentional poisoning: a person is killed by a substance they did not take in order to die. Carbon monoxide, pesticides, alcohol poisoning and household chemicals are typical. A fatal overdose that the source attributes to drug dependence is drug use disorders, not this line. A poisoning that is suicide is self-harm.

Self-harm

Suicide, including suicide by poison, hanging, falling or firearm. The atlas uses the statistical name. It is an external cause, and it is intentional, which is why it is not filed under accidents. If you need someone to talk to, findahelpline.com lists free, confidential lines in most countries.

UNFPA

The United Nations Population Fund. Its work is sexual and reproductive health, including pregnancy and childbirth. It is one of the five publishers of Trends in maternal mortality 2000 to 2023, the estimate behind maternal conditions. unfpa.org.

UNICEF

The United Nations Children's Fund. It is one of the five publishers of the maternal mortality estimates used for maternal conditions. It also leads the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, the other reading of the neonatal total on the unlisted toll. unicef.org.

United Nations Population Division

The population office of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The maternal mortality report names it UNDESA/Population Division. It produces the World Population Prospects, which this site uses for life expectancy and the crude death rate, and it is one of the five publishers of the estimate behind maternal conditions. UN Population Division.

World Bank

The World Bank Group. On the atlas, life expectancy and the crude death rate are the UN World Population Prospects figures as the Bank publishes them. It is also one of the five publishers of the estimate behind maternal conditions. worldbank.org.

World Health Organization

The United Nations agency for health, usually shortened to WHO. Its Global Health Estimates supply the cause shares on the atlas. Its fact sheets supply several round totals, including the neonatal figure on the unlisted toll. It is also one of the five publishers of the estimate behind maternal conditions. It does not keep a live register of every death in the world. who.int.

Last reviewed: 6 October 2026