Global and Regional Causes of Death: Patterns and Trends, 2000–15

One of the six core functions of the World Health Organization (WHO) is monitoring the health situation, trends, and determinants in the world. Global, regional, and country statistics on population and health indicators are important for assessing progress toward goals for development and health and for guiding the allocation of resources. Timely data are needed to monitor progress on increasing life expectancy and reducing age- and cause-specific mortality rates. In particular, timely data are needed to monitor progress toward reaching the health-related targets within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will require regular reporting on child mortality; maternal mortality; and mortality owing to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), suicide, air pollution, road traffic injuries, homicide, natural disasters, and conflict.This chapter summarizes global and regional patterns of causes of death for 2015 and trends for 2000–15 using the 2015 Global Health Estimates (GHE 2015) released by the WHO at the beginning of 2017 (WHO 2017a). The GHE 2015 statistics provide a comprehensive, comparable set of cause-of-death estimates from 2000 onward, consistent with and incorporating estimates from the United Nations (UN) and interagency and the WHO data for population, births, all-cause deaths, and specific causes of death.The GHE 2015 present results for 183 WHO member states with a population of 90,000 or greater in 2015. The GHE 2015 cause-of-death estimates by country, region, and world for 2000–15 confirm and expand previous WHO analyses of global health trends. In particular, the WHO published an assessment of progress toward achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the end of 2015 (WHO 2015b), followed by the World Health Statistics 2016: Monitoring Health for the SDGs (WHO 2016d), which focused on progress and challenges for achieving the SDGs for 2030.The SDGs expand the focus of health targets from the unfinished MDG agenda for child and maternal mortality and priority infectious diseases to a broader agenda including NCDs, injuries, health emergencies, and health risk factors as well as a strong focus on universal health coverage (UN Statistics Division 2017; WHO 2016d). The GHE 2015 estimates of trends and levels of mortality by cause will contribute to WHO and UN monitoring and reporting of progress toward the SDG health goals and targets.