Have you ever wondered What’s actually Killing India? Every other disease name will have in its title as “Top Killer Disease” or “Top cause of Death”. If we have to go by all those reports most of the diseases and death causes would be at numer uno position. This kind of intrigued me. My search ended at www.worldlifeexpectancy.com site. This website gave me statistics and numbers on what actually kills India. Hereafter what you read in this post is derived based on insights I drove from the results this site has published. I have used Tableau Public to create the graphs.

The first question: To 10 Causes of Death in India

Rank one goes to Coronary Heart Disease. Followed by Lung Disease, Stroke, Influenza and Pneumonia, Tuberculosis, Diarrhea diseases, Diabetes Mellitus, Kidney Disease, Low Birth Weight and Liver disease.

Coronary Heart Disease:

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the major cause of mortality globally, as well as in India: WHO

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have now become the leading cause of mortality in India: Circulation (Research publication)

The burden of cardiovascular diseases in developing countries continues to rise and is expected to be a major cause of death in adults from low-income and middle-income countries worldwide: Lancet (Research publication)

Lung disease:

The recent Global Burden of Disease (GBD) survey data have shown that both acute and chronic respiratory diseases are prevalent in substantial number in India: Indian chest society SWORD survey

The deaths due to lung diseases in India were on the rise: WHO

Second Question: To 10 Non Disease Causes of Death in India

Rank one goes to Low birth weight, followed by Road traffic, Falls, Suicide, Other injuries, Birth trauma, Drowning, Violence, Fires, Maternal conditions and Poisoning

Low birth weight:

In India, of all infants who died before they completed 29 days post-birth, 48.1% suffered from Low Birth Weight and premature birth

Road accident:

In India, more than 150,000 people are killed each year in traffic accidents. That’s about 400 fatalities a day and far higher than developed auto markets like the US

Third Question: Cancers among top 50 in India

Breast Cancer, Cervical Cancer, Oral Cancer, Lung Cancers, Stomach Cancer, Colon-Rectum Cancers, Oesophagus Cancer, Ovary Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Liver Cancer, Lymphomas, Leukemia, Pancreas Cancer

Breast Cancer: Cancer burden in India has more than doubled over the last 26 years. The highest increase among all cancer areas, with breast cancer being the most common

Cervical Cancer: It is estimated that in India, about 160 million women aged 30-59 years are at risk of developing cervical cancer

Fourth Question: Infectious diseases among Top 50 in India

Influenza and Pneumonia, Tuberculosis, Diarrhoeal diseases, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, Meningitis, Encephalitis, Measles, Malaria, Dengue

India continues to record high child mortality rate due to diarrhoea. A ray of hope comes from the fact that mortality from diarrhoeal disease is dropping faster in India compared to globally

New HIV infections reached a peak in 1998 and have since declined by 60%, although the total number of HIV‐positive persons remains around 2.1 million. This could be because of increased life expectancy following antiretroviral therapy.

Before summing up the post all the top 50 disease names for your reference. Hope you found this post as amusing as it appeared to me. Do share your comments and thoughts.

Would love to work on similar health numbers, so if you are associated with Health visualization and analytics, do connect