Gallery: Want to Save Lives?
You Need a Map of What's Doing Us In
01Developed-YLL-2010-all
Years of life lost in affluent countries, by cause of death. Noncommunicable diseases (in blue here) account for 79 percent of the total. Fatal injuries have steadily declined—with one exception: adverse effects of medical treatment (the unlabeled dark-green square above).
02Developing-YLL-2010-all
The same picture for poor countries. Note the huge discrepancy in infectious diseases and birth disorders (preterm birth, neonatal sepsis, encephalopathy, etc.)—the major causes of child mortality.
03Communic-natal-worldmap
Projecting the data onto a world map lets you compare countries for any disease or category—here, the percent of life-years lost to infectious illnesses, birth disorders, and malnutrition. Not all developed countries are equal; you can see that the US lags behind Canada and Europe.
04US-YLL-female-15-49-level5
Years of life lost by young women in the US. While breast cancer mortality is down, fatal drug overdoses—mainly from prescription opioid pain relievers—are soaring.
05US-YLL-male-15-49-level5
Young men in the US are 67 percent more likely than women to die of violence or accidental injuries.
06China-YLL-all-1990-level5
GBD Compare also lets you track disease patterns over time. Here, China in 1990 shows the typical profile of a poor rural country, with high child mortality.
07China-YLL-all-2010-level5
Today, China looks a lot like the West—though some lung diseases are noticeably rampant. One of the fastest-growing problems in China’s feverish economy? Pedestrians getting run over in traffic.
08China-YLLS-risk-airpollution
You can also dig down below the surface to trace the effects of contributing risk factors. For China, this chart shows the portion of years lost from each cause that is attributable to air pollution. Note the impact not just on lung cancer and pulmonary disease (COPD) but also stroke and ischemic heart disease (IHD).
09Air-pollution-global-deathrates
And you can compare risk factors across countries as well. This shows deaths from any cause—emphysema, cancer, etc.—attributable to air pollution. Evidently communism is bad for air quality, and the effects last: Bulgaria, Ukraine, and some other former Soviet countries have it worse than China.
