For what is it to die

Skipping Scalia autopsy spawns conspiracy theories. In , the decision not to perform an autopsy on Antonin Scalia drew criticism because of the many questions surrounding his sudden death and because he was an important public figure. A county judge determined the death to be natural , despite not having seen the body. Scalia, for example, had been reported to have heart problems. However, in the case of a younger person with no history of a medical condition, "an autopsy becomes a much more critical part of the process.

Young people don't just die suddenly," Fowler said. Is a death ruling final? Although death certificates are meant to give closure and peace of mind to family members of the deceased, they are not necessarily final.

States generally require death certificates be completed within several days of death , unless an extension has been granted. But if new information about the death, such as the results of an autopsy, becomes available, the physician handling the certificate can amend it. Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter. Death certificates have myriad uses beyond giving families closure or peace of mind.

Researchers use the information to measure the health status of an area, track medical conditions and set research and policy goals. Family members of the deceased may be required to submit a certificate to receive payment from life insurance programs, settle their loved one's estate or to get a burial permit.

Certificates are also key in wrongful death lawsuits brought against, for example, a physician for alleged medical malpractice or a driver for alleged negligence that caused a fatal car crash.

Although it may seem like a natural death would be the most straightforward conclusion to life, it is not always the case. They might want more information to know if this is something that could have been prevented. We cover discussion and analysis on this topic in a blog post here.

What do people in the United States die from? In the chart below we see its breakdown of deaths in Compared with the global data, a larger share of deaths is caused by non-communicable diseases NCDs — accounting for almost 90 percent of mortality — and much lower occurrence of preventable deaths such as diarrheal disease, undernutrition, and neonatal deaths. This is a common pattern across high-income countries: prosperity, high living standards, good healthcare systems although there are large inequalities in healthcare access in the US when compared with other rich countries have seen a successful decline in largely preventable mortality risks.

This major shift in causes of death towards NCDs represents the so-called Epidemiological Transition which marks the transition from infectious diseases towards more chronic conditions.

We see this process in the United States by looking at the shift in mortality across the 20th century. Leading risk factors for death in the United States are therefore now strongly linked to lifestyle choices such as smoking , obesity , blood sugar, dietary intake , and alcohol consumption.

Suicides in the United States rank highly on the list of mortality causes — above deaths from road accidents, and around 2. Germany — again representative of a rich country with high living standards — shows a similar pattern to that of the United States. Leading causes of deaths are dominated by NCDs, dementia, and diseases related to the liver, kidney or digestive systems.

Two thirds of all deaths are caused by cardiovascular diseases and cancer. An interesting distinction between Germany and the United States is its relative tally of road deaths.

Road-related deaths in Germany ranked much lower than in the United States 0. Homicide deaths are also very low — much lower than in the United States 0. This creates an even greater disparity between suicide and violent deaths: around 18 times as many people died from suicide in than from violence. Brazil provides an interesting contrast to the low homicide rates we see in Germany.

As we see in the chart below, homicide ranks 7th in terms of the leading causes of death, claiming around 64, lives 4. Like much of Latin America, the number of homicides greatly outnumber deaths from suicide. In Brazil, more than four times as many people died from violence than from suicide.

This requires us to check our often unconscious bias for single narratives and seek out sources that provide a fact-based perspective on the world. This antidote to the news is what we try to provide at Our World in Data. It should be accessible for everyone, which is why our work is completely open-access. Whether you are a media producer or consumer, feel free to take and use anything you find here. Shares of deaths, media coverage and Google searches over time The interactive charts present the full annual data series published by Shen et al.

Due to data availability Google Trends data only runs from the year to In this article we rely largely on the estimates presented in the Global Burden of Disease GBD studies that are produced under the leadership of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The study is published in The Lancet at TheLancet. These sources include vital registration VR ; verbal autopsy VA ; surveillance, census and survey data; cancer registries; and police records. An important step in the GBD methodology standardization is in reallocating deaths attributed within ICD classifications without an underlying cause of death for example, senility which can be an intermediate but not final cause of death.

GBD redistribute these garbage codes using a methodology explained in detail in Naghavi et al. Death and death rate analyses are then carried out by the GBD researchers across all locations, all ages, both sexes and for the period from onwards based on its Cause of Death Ensemble model CODEm.

The full description of GBD methodology can be found here. Estimating the risk factors associated with millions of deaths around the world is a complex task — particularly when risk factors can compound and collectively influence the likelihood of disease and, eventually, death. The Global Burden of Disease GBD studies — on which we largely rely on in this article — provide one of, if not the, most in-depth analysis and synthesis of relative risk factors.

The GBD groups risk factors into four broad categories: behavioral risks, environmental risks, occupational risks, and metabolic risks. The central tool to estimate the impact of various risk factors is the Comparative Risk Assessment CRA conceptual framework 21 which details how various risk factors affect health outcomes and ultimately death.

For example, there is evidence of links between a higher body mass index BMI and the risk of multiple non-communicable diseases NCDs including cardiovascular disease, ischemic stroke and some cancers.

Such risk-outcome pairs e. A key point to emphasise is that attributing deaths to risk factors necessarily implies making assumptions about the magnitude of the causal impact that each factor has on the probability of death, everything else equal. Establishing causal impacts this way is difficult. The GBD studies rely on state-of-the-art evidence from cohort, case studies and trials, but extrapolating from this evidence still requires making assumptions, with an implied margin of error. As scientific research advances, new evidence becomes available — the estimates from the GBD studies adapt, and become more precise when new academic research emerges.

Once a risk-outcome pair has been identified, how does IHME begin to quantify the disease burden or number of deaths attributed to each risk? The CRA can be used for two different types of assessment, attributable burden and avoidable burden :. Cohort, case studies and trials of established risk-exposure relationships between BMI and ischemic stroke allow for the calculation of the reduction in deaths which would have occurred if BMI was reduced to a healthy level across the population distribution.

This relationship can be established by specific demographic groups, such as by sex or age. The difference between the number of deaths from ischemic stroke which would have occurred at the TMREL and at the actual BMI distribution is given as the number of deaths attributed to high BMI from ischemic stroke.

By completing this process for all risk-outcome pairs, IHME can sum to estimate the total number of deaths attributed to high BMI, and replicated for all risk factors using their individual risk-outcome exposure curves. Note that this process of estimation is not additive; in other words, these risk-specific relationships do not account for the compounding effects of multiple risk factors.

High BMI, for example, may likely be present with other lifestyle factors such as low physical activity levels, high blood pressure, low fruit and vegetable intake. For example, the chart here shows the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. However, if you sum the deaths attributable to individual risk factors they will add up to more that 18 million. The reason is because these risk factors are calculated individually and the measurement does not account for the compounding effects of multiple risk factors.

The map shows the share of total deaths reported by national statistics authorities to the UN Statistic Division divided by the number of total deaths estimated by the UN Population Division. Summary Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally. The second biggest cause are cancers. In this section you can see the causes of death for all countries in the world. Causes of death vary significantly between countries: non-communicable diseases dominate in rich countries, whereas infectious diseases remain high at lower incomes.

The world is making progress against infectious diseases. As a consequence more people are dying from non-communicable diseases. Almost half of all people who die are 70 years and older. Leading risk factors for premature death globally include high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, high blood sugar and environmental risk factors including air pollution.

There is a large difference between what people die from and which causes of death receive news coverage. All our charts on Causes of Death Age-standardized death rate from cardiovascular diseases, per , individuals Age-standardized death rate from non-communicable diseases Cancer death rates by age group Cancer death rates by type Cancer deaths by type Cardiovascular disease death rate vs. GDP per capita Drowning death rates — children under the age of 5 Drowning deaths rate by age Fire death rates by age Heptatitis death rate Incidence of venomous animal contact Malnutrition death rate vs.

WHO data Road traffic deaths Share of deaths by cause Stroke death rates Stroke death rates by age Total number of deaths by cause category Total number of fatal shark attacks Total shark attacks per year Twentieth century of deaths. Definitions: Cause of death vs risk factors It is important to understand what is meant by the cause of death and the risk factor associated with a premature death: In the epidemiological framework of the Global Burden of Disease study each death has one specific cause.

What do people die from? Using the timeline on the chart you can also explore how deaths by cause have changed over time. Click to open interactive version. Causes of death by category. The share of deaths from infectious diseases are declining; a larger share is dying from NCDs. In the visualization we see the distribution of global deaths broken down by three broad categories: 1 — in yellow: Injuries caused by road accidents, homicides , conflict deaths , drowning, fire-related accidents, natural disasters and suicides.

These are often chronic, long-term illnesses and include cardiovascular diseases including stroke , cancers , diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases such as chronic pulmonary disease and asthma, but excluding infectious respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis and influenza.

Causes of death by age. Causes of deaths of children younger than 5. This chart shows the number of deaths in children under 5 years old by cause. Causes of deaths for children between 5 and Causes of deaths for 15 to 49 year olds. This visualization shows the causes of deaths of those who died between the age of 15 and Causes of deaths for 50 to 69 year olds. This visualization shows the causes of deaths of those who died between the age of 50 and Causes of deaths for people who were older than 69 years.

Risk factors for death. It is important to understand what is meant by the cause of death and the risk factor associated with a premature death: In the epidemiological framework of the Global Burden of Disease study each death has one specific cause. The number of deaths by risk factor. Risk factors for death by age Risk factors of death in under-5s. Risk factors for death in year olds. Cause by cause. Cardiovascular disease is the top cause of death globally.

In the map we see death rates from cardiovascular diseases across the world. Additional information Cardiovascular disease deaths by age In the visualization we see the breakdown of deaths from CVD by age category.

Cardiovascular disease death rates by age In the chart we see the CVD death rate per , differentiated by age categories. In the map we see cancer death rates across the world.

Cancers You can explore global, regional and country-level data on cancer prevalence, deaths, and survival rates in our full article here. Additional information Dementia deaths by age The chart shows the breakdown of dementia-related deaths by age group.

In the map we see death rates from diarrheal diseases across the world. Diarrheal diseases You can explore global, regional and country-level data on diarrheal diseases in our full article here. In the map we see death rates from tuberculosis across the world. Additional information Tuberculosis deaths by age In the chart we see the breakdown of deaths from tuberculosis by age category. Tuberculosis death rates by age In the visualization we see the breakdown of death rates from TB by age category.

In the map we see death rates from protein-energy malnutrition across the world. Additional information Malnutrition deaths by age In the chart we see the annual number of deaths attributed to protein-energy malnutrition PEM , differentiated by age group. Malnutrition death rates by age In the visualization we see the breakdown of death rates by age category.

In the map we see death rates from malaria across the world. Malaria You can explore global, regional and country-level data on malaria prevalence, deaths, and treatments in our full article here. In the map we see death rates from tobacco smoking across the world. Smoking You can explore global, regional and country-level data on the prevalence of smoking, its health impacts and attributed deaths in our full article here.

Suicide You can explore global, regional and country-level data on deaths from suicide in our full article here. In the map we see homicide rates across the world. Homicides You can explore global, regional and country-level data on homicides in our full article here. In the the map we see death rates from natural disasters across the world.

Natural disasters You can explore data on the number, costs and deaths from natural disasters in our full article here. In the map we see death rates from road incidents across the world. Road incident deaths by age In the chart we see the breakdown of road accident deaths by age category.

Road incident death rates by age In the chart we see the breakdown of death rates from road incidents by age category. In the map we see death rates from drowning across the world. Additional information Drowning deaths by age group In the chart we see the breakdown of annual drowning deaths by age group. Drowning death rates by age In the visualization we see the relative death rates from drowning across age groups. In the map we see death rates from fire across the world.

Additional information Fire deaths by age The chart shows the annual deaths from fire or burning incidents broken down by age group. Fire deaths rates by age In the visualization we see the relative death rates between age categories.

In the map we see death rates from terrorism across the world. Terrorism You can explore data on the number of terrorist attacks and deaths in our full article here. Around 1. Does the news reflect what we die from? What we die from; what we Google; what we read in the news. So, what do the results look like? In the chart below I present the comparison. And the discrepancy between what we actually die from and what we get informed of in the media is what stands out: around one-third of the considered causes of deaths resulted from heart disease, yet this cause of death receives only percent of Google searches and media coverage; just under one-third of the deaths came from cancer; we actually Google cancer a lot 37 percent of searches and it is a popular entry here on our site; but it receives only percent of media coverage; we searched for road incidents more frequently than their share of deaths; however, they receive much less attention in the news; when it comes to deaths from strokes, Google searches and media coverage are surprisingly balanced; the largest discrepancies concern violent forms of death: suicide , homicide and terrorism.

All three receive much more relative attention in Google searches and media coverage than their relative share of deaths. When it comes to the media coverage on causes of death, violent deaths account for more than two-thirds of coverage in the New York Times and The Guardian but account for less than 3 percent of the total deaths in the US.

How over- or underrepresented are deaths in the media? Should media exposure reflect what we die from?