Assessing the leading causes of death in a given country is a means for evaluating a country’s public health system, and a tool for creating public health policy.
Fifty-six million people died in 2012, according to the World Health Organization. Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women. Noncommunicable diseases — cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic lung diseases — accounted for 68 percent of those deaths.
Communicable diseases, maternal illness, neonatal problems and nutrition comprised 23 percent of global deaths, and injuries caused the remaining 9 percent.
Please buy safe cars, make sure your daughters wear seat belts and avoid driving while impaired. Automobile accidents are the number one killer of adolescent girls in high- and upper-middle-income countries.
If you have a friend who is afraid of her husband or partner, help her. WHO reports that 38 percent of women murdered worldwide were killed by an intimate partner.
Women’s lifespans outpace those of men by an average of four years in all countries. In 2011, the average life expectancy of women at birth in 46 developed countries was 80 years, compared to a life expectancy of only 46 years in the WHO African Region.
The United Nations World Population Prospects released tables noting the average life expectancy of the worlds’ women at birth for the years 2009 - 2012. Japan tops the list with their average female citizen living nearly 87 years.
Japan........................86.96
Switzerland...............84.12
Hong Kong.................84.30
Australia.....................84
Italy.............................83.98
Iceland........................83.05
France (metropol.).....84.32
Sweden......................82.93
Spain..........................84
Israel..........................82.87
The United States doesn’t make the top 10 — not even the top 20. American women, with an average life expectancy of 80.41 years, come in at number 40.
Nine of the ten countries with the lowest female life expectancy are located in Africa. Afghanistan ranks 8th worst for women, where women have an average lifespan of only 47.47 years.
Chad...........................................49.90
Dem. Republic of the Congo.....48.91
Swaziland..................................47.04
Afghanistan...............................47.47
Zambia......................................47.26
Guinea-Bissau...........................48.22
Zimbabwe.................................45.43
Sierra Leone..............................46.88
Lesotho.....................................45.18
Central African Republic..........47.31
Women in low-income countries like these are most vulnerable to death in childbirth. Maternal death is the second leading cause of death in women of childbearing age, reports WHO. Each year approximately 287,000 women die due to pregnancy complications or childbirth. Ninety-nine percent of maternal deaths occur in developing countries.
If you’d like to facilitate a solution to that problem, read the EmpowHer article on Crowdfunding Safe Pregnancies, and consider donating to Kangu, an organization established to providing health services to pregnant women throughout the world.
Sources:
The top 10 causes of death. who.int. Retrieved July 13, 2015.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/index2.html
Women’s Health. Who.int. Retrieved July 13, 2015.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs334/en/
World Population Prospects Economic and Social Affairs. esa.un.org. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
The 2012 Revision
http://esa.un.org/wpp/documentation/pdf/wpp2012_highlights.pdf
List of countries by life expectancy. enwikipedia.org. Retrieved July 15, 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#cite_...
Reviewed July 16, 2015
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith