WHO Releases Leading Causes of Death

The global health landscape continues to evolve and people are living longer, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest Global Health Estimates, which provide a picture of how health has changed across countries between 2000 and 2023. Global life expectancy reached 73.3 years in 2023, close to the 73.4 years recorded in 2019. Healthy life expectancy has recovered more slowly, reaching 62.8 years in 2023, still 0.4 years below its 2019 level.

Following the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, global life expectancy has returned to an estimate close to pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) account for an increasing share of deaths, with conditions such as diabetes, dementia, mental health conditions and drug use disorders contributing to a growing and changing burden of disease. NCDs accounted for 74% of deaths globally in 2023, compared with 58% in 2000. Eight of the world’s ten leading causes of death were NCDs in 2023.

In 2023, for the first time, communicable diseases accounted for less than half of all deaths in low-income countries, marking another step in the global epidemiological transition. 

“Living longer is one of the great achievements of public health,” said Dr Alain Labrique, Director of WHO’s Department of Data, Digital Health, Analytics and AI. “The next challenge is to ensure that those additional years are lived in good health, while health systems are equipped to respond to the changing needs of populations.”  

In 2023, the 10 leading causes of death accounted for 33 million deaths, or 54% of the total 61 million deaths worldwide. At a global level, eight of the 10 leading causes of deaths in 2023 were noncommunicable diseases, accounting for 47% of all deaths, or 88% of the top 10 causes. Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death and disease burden worldwide. 

Lower respiratory infections reclaimed the position as the world’s most deadly communicable disease and ranked as the fourth leading cause of death in 2023. The number of deaths from lower respiratory infections has gone up since 2022 as the competing risk from COVID-19 was partly contained. In 2023 it claimed 2.7 million lives, returning back up to its 2019 pre-pandemic level.

COVID-19 was directly responsible for an estimated 5.3 million deaths in 2020 and 9.4 million deaths in 2021, ranking as the third and first leading cause of death worldwide in these years respectively, as the pandemic reached its peak impact. A declining trend was observed in 2022 and 2023, with the number of deaths directly attributable to COVID-19 falling to 0.9 million globally, making it the fourteenth leading cause of death.