World Health Book Gives Statistics on Life, Death

A Frenchman is more likely to die from an accidental fall than a car crash. Japan has the lowest cancer death rate of all industrialized countries. Homicide is 15 times more frequent in the United States than in Britain.

In Hong Kong, a 65-year-old woman has a good chance of living 20 more years. But in Romania, home of a much-publicized geriatrics clinic, a newborn boy has a life expectancy of only 67.1 years. On the African island of Mauritius, the infant could expect to live only 63.2 years.

These facts are among the thousands in the 385-page Statistical Year Book published by the World Health Organization. There is no apparent explanation for some of the figures, but in other cases, patterns emerge.

--Wine-growing countries have the highest number of fatal liver ailments, including cirrhosis. The rate per 100,000 people was 34.3 in Italy, 29.5 in Chile and 27.6 in France. On the other hand, the rate was 8.4 in Scotland and 4.6 in Norway.

--Suicide statistics are often considered unreliable because Christian churches view it as a grave sin, and as a result the official cause of death is sometimes listed as something else. However, the figures indicate that a “suicide belt,” researched inconclusively for years, does extend from Scandinavia through Central Europe. The rate is by far the highest in Hungary, at the lower end of the “belt,” where the rate was reported at 43.5 per 100,000 people.

In many other European countries and Japan, suicides also outnumber fatal automobile accidents, but in the United States the suicide rate is only half that of road deaths.

--Among Western industrialized nations, the United States has by far the highest death rate for what the U.N. organization terms “Homicide and Injury Purposely Inflicted by Other Persons.” The U.S. rate of 10.5 violent deaths per 100,000 people in 1980 was 15 times higher than the rate of 0.7 that year in Britain. However, in El Salvador, where the U.S.-backed government and leftist rebels are fighting a civil war, the rate was 37.6.

Some of the data seem puzzling. For example, why is East Germany’s rate of death by accidental poisoning, 8.3 per 100,000 people, substantially higher than all other countries listed? Why are more people killed by accidental falls than traffic accidents in France?

Japan continued to lead all countries in life expectancy, with an average of 74.5 years for a newborn. Greece was second with an average of 73.6 years.

Statistics for Western countries showed a wide differences in death rates due to heart ailments and other diseases.