Giving Compass' Take:

• Hannah Ritchie at Our World in Data breaks down the leading causes of death worldwide, including cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and respiratory and diabetes-related diseases.

• How are these statistics skewed by the variation in the availability of data between countries? How can funders use this information to prioritize funding? 

• Learn how foundations can accelerate health system improvements. 

In 2016, around 55 million people died – nearly half of these were aged 70 years or older; 27% aged 50-69; 15% aged 15-49; only 1% aged 5-14; and around 10% were children under the age of 5.

The leading global killer in 2016 were cardiovascular diseases (CVD), which refer to a range of diseases that affect the heart and blood vessels. Cardiovascular diseases killed 17.6 million people – around one-third of all deaths.

Cancers were the second largest, claiming around 9 million (16 percent or every sixth death globally).

Rounding off the top four were respiratory and diabetes-related diseases. Collectively, these are known as non-communicable diseases (NCDs): together they accounted for more than 39 million deaths (more than 70 percent) in 2016.

More than 1.7 million newborns still died due to complications at birth. Similarly, diarrheal diseases — which claimed 1.7 million people in 2016 and is one of the leading causes of death in children under 5 years old.

Road accidents fall within the top ten causes of death, claiming 1.3 million in 2016.

Surprising to some is that the number who die from suicide is more than double that of homicide at a global level. In fact, the number of deaths from suicides is higher than the number of deaths from all forms of violence.

Read the full article on global deaths by Hannah Ritchie at Our World in Data.