Global Mortality in 1998
A snapshot of death rates, leading causes, and country rankings for 1998.
| # | Country | Death Rate | #1 Cause | Region |
|---|
1998 saw Hurricane Mitch devastate Central America, killing over 11,000 people and displacing millions, while the Second Congo War began — a conflict that would eventually become the deadliest since World War II, with an estimated 5.4 million excess deaths by 2008. The WHO released its first comprehensive global mortality estimates, revealing that non-communicable diseases had overtaken communicable diseases as the leading cause of death worldwide.
In 1998, data from 221 countries reveals the leading causes of death by share: cardiovascular diseases (29.4%), cancers (neoplasms) (13.7%), lower respiratory infections (5.9%), neonatal disorders (4.8%), digestive diseases (4.1%). These averages reflect the cross-country mean share of total deaths and highlight the dominant mortality patterns of the era.
Compared to 1990, the most significant shifts in the global mortality profile by 1998 include: HIV/AIDS increased by 2.5 percentage points (from 1.1% to 3.6%); enteric infections decreased by 1.4 percentage points (from 5.3% to 3.9%); diarrheal diseases decreased by 1.3 percentage points (from 4.9% to 3.6%); neonatal disorders decreased by 1.1 percentage points (from 5.8% to 4.8%). These changes reflect evolving risk factor exposures, demographic transitions, medical advances, and public health interventions across the world.
Global mortality statistics are compiled from multiple sources. High-income countries typically rely on national vital registration systems with medical certification of cause of death, while many low- and middle-income countries supplement incomplete civil registration with verbal autopsy surveys and hospital records. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) integrates these inputs using statistical modeling to produce comparable estimates across countries and years. The 'share of deaths' metric shown in the charts represents the proportion of all deaths in a given country-year attributed to each cause category, summing to approximately 100% across all causes. When comparing across years, small shifts of one to two percentage points may reflect updates in data sources, changes in diagnostic coding (such as ICD revision transitions), or improvements in modeling methodology rather than true epidemiological changes. Larger shifts — particularly those sustained over multiple consecutive years — are more likely to represent genuine trends in population health.