Where you were born can dramatically affect how and at what age you die. That’s the conclusion the 2013 edition of a Global Burden of Disease study. Watch how and why people are dying early in every country:
Why people die early in each country, explained in 3 minutes
Years of lost life (YLL) is a metric that takes into account the age at which someone dies, in addition to the cause. This gives greater weight to deaths that occur at younger ages, and thus tends to be a useful depiction of why people are dying early.
An international group of hundreds of health researchers collaborated on a 2013 report that explores YLL around the world. The result is this map.
The story this data set tells is how industry and development have nearly conquered early death. Poor countries still suffer from infectious diseases, which usually claim people early in life. Four in every 10 deaths in poor countries are among people under 15.
But in wealthier nation, death comes much later and is caused mainly by age-related illnesses like heart disease and stroke. These nations have built health infrastructures that have all but eradicated infectious diseases that are the early killers in so many poor countries.
Yet despite all the talk of death, there's actually good news here: People are living longer, and YLL is dropping in almost every category. There's still a lot of work to be done, but we seem to be heading in the right direction.
