Countries by Cause of death, by communicable diseases and maternal, prenatal and nutrition conditions (% of total)

Ranking 2019

Values shown in %.

Analysis

This metric measures the share of all deaths attributable to a specific category of causes. As defined by the source: cause of death refers to the share of all deaths for all ages by underlying causes, and communicable diseases and maternal, prenatal and nutrition conditions include infectious and parasitic diseases, respiratory infections, and nutritional deficiencies such as underweight and stunting. Values are expressed as a percentage of total deaths. The ranking covers 183 countries using World Bank World Development Indicators (indicator code SH.DTH.COMM.ZS), with all data from 2019. All 183 countries have data from within the last 7 years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official quality. No extreme outliers were identified using a 3-standard-deviation threshold.

The top of the ranking is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria leads at 65.21% (rank 1), followed by Chad at 63.45% (rank 2) and South Sudan at 61.30% (rank 3). Somalia (rank 4, 61.02%), Mali (rank 5, 60.25%), and Niger (rank 7, 59.17%) also exceed 59%. All ten of the highest-ranked countries are in West or Central Africa, and the top 30 are almost entirely African nations. The first non-African country to appear is Timor-Leste at rank 41 with 40.06%.

The middle of the ranking shows considerable variation. Pakistan ranks 47th at 33.15% and India ranks 56th at 24.17%, reflecting large populations where communicable disease burdens remain significant relative to high-income countries. A notable anomaly appears at rank 64: Singapore, a high-income country, records 20.71%, higher than several lower-income countries in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia (rank 66, 18.93%) and Thailand (rank 80, 13.90%). Greece (rank 87, 12.85%) and South Korea (rank 88, 12.83%) appear near each other, while the United States ranks 151st at 5.30%. The bottom of the ranking is dominated by Eastern European nations, with North Macedonia (rank 183, 1.28%), Montenegro (rank 182, 1.41%), and Finland (rank 181, 1.42%) recording the lowest shares.

This metric captures only the share of deaths by cause, not absolute death counts or mortality rates. A country with a high percentage may have a small population, while a country with a low percentage may still experience large absolute numbers of communicable disease deaths. The metric does not distinguish between individual diseases within the category, so the relative contribution of, for example, respiratory infections versus nutritional deficiencies is not visible. Reporting quality for cause-of-death data varies significantly across countries, particularly where civil registration and vital statistics systems are incomplete, which may affect comparability at the country level despite the 100% official classification in this dataset.

Methodology

Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SH.DTH.COMM.ZS, for the reference year 2019. The metric is defined as follows: cause of death refers to the share of all deaths for all ages by underlying causes; communicable diseases and maternal, prenatal and nutrition conditions include infectious and parasitic diseases, respiratory infections, and nutritional deficiencies such as underweight and stunting. The unit is percentage of total deaths. The ranking covers 183 countries, exceeding the 80-country coverage threshold. All 183 countries (100%) have data from within the last 7 years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official quality, above the 70% threshold. No extreme outliers were found using a 3-standard-deviation test. The average year-over-year change is 15.6%, well within the 50% volatility threshold. Values range from 1.28% (North Macedonia) to 65.21% (Nigeria), a spread of approximately 4,980%. Higher values indicate a greater share of deaths from communicable and related causes.

Sources

• World Bank