International

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) about 68.3 million people died worldwide in 2021. Of this total, 3.1 million died from preventable injuries.

While preventable injuries are the world’s sixth leading cause of death, they are the third leading cause of death in the United States, behind heart disease and malignant neoplasms (cancer).

Motor-vehicle injuries are the leading cause of preventable death in the world, accounting for nearly 1.2 million deaths in 2021. Falls are the second leading cause of preventable death in the world with 739,089 deaths, while drowning is the third leading cause of death (300,250). Poisoning ranks sixth in the world, with 59,330 fatalities.

Preventable injury-related death rankings for the world contrast sharply with the U.S. experience. Poisonings have been the leading cause of death in the United States since 2013, with falls ranked second and motor-vehicle ranked third.

This section on international injuries and fatalities includes data for occupational as well as general unintentional-injury deaths. The two primary data sources used in this section are the WHO and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Source: World Health Organization. (2024). Global Health Estimates 2021: Deaths by Cause, Age, Sex, by Country and by Region, 2000-2021. Geneva: Author.