All The Same? On a Certain Pattern in Cross‐National Death Risk

This article considers whether a nation that fares relatively well (or badly) on a particular dimension of mortality risk tends also to do so on others. Working with 2016 data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study, we focus on six causes of premature death: transport accidents, other accidents, homicide, early‐childhood diseases, and both communicable and noncommunicable diseases beyond early childhood. We consider data from all 26 nations that had populations of at least 50 million in 2016, as well as 15 clusters of smaller nations that are similar in longevity (e.g., Scandinavia). We use an analytic method that facilitates useful comparisons across nations, for it recognizes that some potential death risks can be underestimated because citizens die sooner from other causes. We estimate reductions in lifespan from each of the six causes relative to natural lifespan as defined by GBD. It emerges that, for all 15 pairings among the six causes, these reductions are positively correlated. We introduce metrics to summarize a nation's overall “safety status,” and find that losses of longevity because of premature deaths are nearly three decades fewer in the safest countries than in the least safe ones. Turning to possible explanations for the cross‐national differences, we find a strong association between a nation's safety status and both its economic wherewithal as indicated by the 2016 GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power parity) and its income inequality as reflected by its Gini coefficient.