Countries by Cause of death, by injury (% of total)
Yemen ranks 1st globally with 19.49% of all deaths attributed to injuries in 2019, followed closely by Saudi Arabia at 19.46% and Venezuela at 19.38%. At the other end, Serbia ranks 183rd with just 2.37%. The gap of more than 17 percentage points separates countries where injury is a dominant cause of death from those where it plays a minor role.
Ranking 2019
Values shown in %.
Analysis
This metric measures the share of all deaths from injuries as a percentage of total deaths across all ages. According to the source definition, cause of death refers to the share of all deaths for all ages by underlying causes, and injuries include unintentional and intentional injuries. The unit is percentage of total deaths. Data come from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SH.DTH.INJR.ZS, for the year 2019. Coverage is strong: 183 countries are included, all with data from within the last 7 years, and 100% of data points are classified as official quality. Seven extreme outliers were identified using a 3-standard-deviation threshold. The range spans from 2.37% to 19.49%, a spread of 721%.
The top of the ranking is dominated by countries in conflict zones, the Gulf region, and parts of Latin America. Yemen ranks 1st at 19.49%, Saudi Arabia 2nd at 19.46%, and Venezuela 3rd at 19.38%. El Salvador ranks 4th at 19.09% and Belize 5th at 18.85%. Qatar ranks 6th at 18.16% and Honduras 7th at 17.89%. Iraq sits at rank 8 with 17.81% and Afghanistan at rank 9 with 17.29%. These are the countries where injury accounts for the highest share of all deaths, indicating that injury-related mortality represents an unusually large fraction of the overall death burden.
The middle of the ranking includes a diverse set of countries. India ranks 60th at 9.90%, Thailand 68th at 9.51%, and Korea, Rep. ranks 75th at 9.26%. The United States ranks 122nd at 6.55%, and Russia ranks 119th at 6.79%. A notable anomaly is Korea, Rep. ranking 75th at 9.26%, placing it above many lower-income countries in injury share. At the lower end, Bulgaria ranks 182nd at 2.47% and North Macedonia 181st at 2.58%, both substantially below the global range. Several Western European countries cluster near the bottom: Spain ranks 177th at 3.62%, Italy 172nd at 3.86%, and the United Kingdom 175th at 3.69%.
This metric has important limitations. It captures the share of deaths from injury relative to total deaths, not the absolute number of injury deaths or the injury mortality rate per population. A country with a high burden of non-communicable or communicable diseases may show a lower injury share even if its absolute injury death count is significant. Conversely, countries with lower overall mortality from other causes may rank higher simply because injury represents a larger residual share. Reporting reliability varies: cause-of-death data depends on functioning civil registration and vital statistics systems, which are less complete in some lower-income countries. The 2019 data year predates or coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have altered total death compositions in subsequent years but does not affect this dataset.
Methodology
Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SH.DTH.INJR.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; injuries include unintentional and intentional injuries. Values are expressed as a percentage of total deaths. The dataset covers 183 countries, all of which have data from within the last 7 years, meeting the 80-country coverage threshold. All 183 data points are classified as official quality, exceeding the 70% threshold. A viability check identified 7 extreme outliers using a 3-standard-deviation threshold. The average year-over-year change is 14.5%, well below the 50% volatility threshold. The value range is 2.37% to 19.49%, representing a 721% spread across the ranked countries. No microstates under 1 million population are included in the dataset.