List of causes of death by rate
In 2005, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), about 58 million people died.
[14] 70% of childhood deaths (age 0–4) are reportedly due to diarrheal illness, acute respiratory infection, malaria and immunizable disease.
[15] The effects of malnutrition include increased susceptibility to infection,[16] musculature wasting, skeletal deformities and neurologic development delays.
[28] Diets, not just in terms of obesity but also of food composition, can have a major impact on underlying factors (see also #Aging below), with reviews suggesting i.a.
7 million people worldwide each year, and is the world's largest single environmental health risk, according to the WHO (2012) and the IEA (2016).
[33][34][35] The IEA notes that many of root causes and cures can be found in the energy industry and suggests solutions such as retiring polluting coal-fired power plants and to establishing stricter standards for motor vehicles.
[35] In September 2020 the European Environment Agency reported that environmental factors such as air pollution and heatwaves contributed to around 13% of all human deaths in EU countries in 2012 (~630,000).
[36] A 2021 study using a high spatial resolution model and an updated concentration-response function finds that 10.2 million global excess deaths in 2012 and 8.7 million in 2018 – or a fifth[dubious – discuss] – were due to air pollution generated by fossil fuel combustion, significantly higher than earlier estimates and with spatially subdivided mortality impacts.
[44] The health impacts of tobacco-alternative products such as various herbs and the use of charcoal filters[45][46] are often investigated less, with existing research suggesting only limited benefits over tobacco smoking.
Some smokers may benefit from switching to a vaporizer as a harm reduction measure if they do not quit, which however also only has little robust evidence.
In a small study of 26 decedents,[better source needed] the pandemized COVID-19 and infection-related disease were "major contributors" to patients' death.
Types of preventive measures may include support of "healthy development of individuals, families, schools, and communities, and build[ing] capacity for positive relationships and interactions".
It is estimated that, as a root cause, the aging process underlies 2/3 of all death in the world (approximately 100,000 people per day in 2007).
[72] There are requests of granting aging an official status of a disease and treating it directly (such as via dietary changes (see above) and senolytics).
For example, economics may result in certain therapies or screenings being expensive rather than produced at an affordable price or medication costs being too high for an individual to afford them even if they are made available at low cost, poverty can affect nutrition, marketing can increase the consumption of unhealthy products, incentives and regulations for health and healthy environments may be weak or missing, and occupational safety and humans' environment can suffer due to economic pressures for low production costs and high consumption.
[81] One study estimated how many people die from poverty in the U.S.[82] Low socioeconomic status, as determined by economics, appears to reduce life expectancy.
[83] The current systemic incentive for maximized profits may inhibit global occupational health and safety.
For example, various Global Burden of Disease Studies investigate such factors and quantify recent developments – one such systematic analysis analyzed the (non)progress on cancer and its causes during the 2010–19-decade, indicating that 2019, ~44% of all cancer deaths – or ~4.5 M deaths or ~105 million lost disability-adjusted life years – were due to known clearly preventable risk factors, led by smoking, alcohol use and high BMI.
