Global Mortality in 2022
A snapshot of death rates, leading causes, and country rankings for 2022.
| # | Country | Death Rate | #1 Cause | Region |
|---|
The Omicron variant dominated 2022, causing high infection rates but lower case fatality ratios due to prior immunity and vaccination. Excess mortality declined from 2021 but remained elevated. Russia's invasion of Ukraine created Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II and caused tens of thousands of conflict deaths. Global food and energy price spikes exacerbated malnutrition in vulnerable populations, particularly in the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan.
In 2022, data from 210 countries reveals the leading causes of death by share: cardiovascular diseases (28.7%), cancers (neoplasms) (16.5%), COVID-19 (5.7%), lower respiratory infections (4.7%), diabetes (4.2%). These averages reflect the cross-country mean share of total deaths and highlight the dominant mortality patterns of the era.
Compared to 2020, the most significant shifts in the global mortality profile by 2022 include: COVID-19 decreased by 3.8 percentage points (from 9.4% to 5.7%); cardiovascular diseases increased by 1.3 percentage points (from 27.4% to 28.7%); cancers (neoplasms) increased by 0.8 percentage points (from 15.7% to 16.5%); lower respiratory infections increased by 0.3 percentage points (from 4.4% to 4.7%). 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.