Our World in Data

When someone dies, they are usually given a single underlying cause — a particular disease or injury — on their death certificate. But beneath each disease or injury, there can be a range of factors that make the disease or injury more likely to occur. These are called risk factors. We’re all familiar with many: for example, smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer and a multitude of other causes of death, as you can see in the chart. Understanding these factors is important because they can help us identify how to reduce disease and death. Read more about what a risk factor is, how researchers estimate how many deaths are caused by risk factors, and how to interpret these estimates: https://lnkd.in/ehK4x_gX

China is the top import partner for most countries in the world— Over the past two decades, China’s role in global trade has expanded substantially. It has become a central hub, particularly through growing relationships with many lower and middle-income countries. The map here shows how China ranks as a source of imports into each country. A rank of 1 means that China is the largest source of merchandise goods (by value) that a country buys abroad. In 2024, China was the top source of imported goods for around two-thirds of countries worldwide. This includes nearly all of Asia, much of Africa and Latin America, and parts of Europe. In many countries, China has overtaken the United States as the largest origin of their imported goods. This shift has occurred relatively recently, mainly over the past two decades. (This Data Insight was written by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Veronika Samborska, Bertha Rohenkohl, and Simon van Teutem.) This Data Insight is the first of a three-part series on China’s role in global trade, drawing on new writing we added this week to our Trade and Globalization topic page. Read more about trade partnerships and China’s changing role in global trade on our updated page: https://lnkd.in/ee3wXUBw

In these nine countries with the worst child mortality rates, about one in ten children dies before turning five— Despite the world’s immense progress against child mortality, in some of the poorest countries, one in ten children still dies. That’s a level last seen in the richest countries in the middle of the 20th century. The chart shows the nine countries, all located in Africa, where this is the reality today. In Niger, more than 11 out of every 100 children die before the age of five. In the European Union, the child mortality rate is more than twenty times lower. (This Data Insight was written by Simon van Teutem.) To learn more, read our colleague Max Roser’s article: “Child mortality: an everyday tragedy of enormous scale that we can make progress against”: https://lnkd.in/eHg8faDM

We just published our “Top of the Charts”, a look back at our most popular charts, articles, data insights, & more in 2025! → https://lnkd.in/eSvMfpr8 Here are our top 5 most-viewed charts. Each Friday over the next few weeks, we’ll share the top 5 for other categories (articles, data insights, etc.), so stay tuned! 1. CO2 emissions 2. Life expectancy 3. Democracy 4. Temperature anomalies 5. Economic growth We hope you enjoy this retrospective! If you do, please share it with someone who you think would, too. Sharing with others is one of the best ways you can support our work. Thank you! We use a permissive Creative Commons license and include easy options to share, download, and even embed our interactive charts. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/e3Bubrvb Explore all of our nearly 14,000 charts: https://lnkd.in/gcsqQJfH

Global chicken consumption per person has quadrupled since 1961— In 1961, around two chickens were slaughtered per person globally each year. As many countries grew richer — and richer countries tend to eat more meat — global demand for chicken increased. Since then, the number of chickens slaughtered per person has quadrupled. On average, 9 chickens are killed each year for every person in the world. Chickens have also become much heavier, so the amount of meat eaten in kilograms has grown even faster. Life is short and painful for many farmed animals. Global estimates suggest that most are raised in factory farms. In the United States, around 99% of livestock comes from them. (This Data Insight was written by Simon van Teutem.) Explore more interactive charts and articles on animal welfare on our dedicated topic page: https://lnkd.in/e9YSSqA4 Subscribe to our newsletter to receive Data Insights directly in your inbox: https://lnkd.in/gd_4ubhw

Hannah Ritchie, our Deputy Editor and Science Outreach Lead, recently received an award for her climate change communication from the United Nations Information Centre Prague (UNIC) in the Czech Republic. Hannah was awarded the honorary “Inspiration from Abroad”, for those living outside the Czech Republic who effectively communicate about climate change. Congratulations, Hannah! Read more about the award: https://lnkd.in/dHU-6gMq

How many lives would be saved if Africa had other regions’ child mortality rates? One of the starkest expressions of global inequality is a child’s chance of survival. In 2023, 2.84 million children in Africa died before reaching their fifth birthday, giving the continent the highest child mortality rate of any region (5.9%). The chart shows a simple hypothesis: how many more African children would reach the age of five if it had the same child mortality rates as other regions? If conditions in Africa improved enough to match Asia’s current child mortality rate (2%), 1.9 million of these 2.84 million children would survive. If the child mortality rate were to drop to the European rate (0.4%), then 2.64 million children would be saved each year. (This Data Insight was written by Simon van Teutem.) To learn more, read our colleague Max Roser’s article on the progress made in reducing child mortality: https://lnkd.in/eHg8faDM

A diverse range of mammals once roamed the planet. This changed dramatically with the arrival of humans, who have become the dominant species through our own population, as well as the animals we breed and raise for food. What is the distribution of the global mammal kingdom today? The chart shows a breakdown of land and marine mammals in terms of biomass — the total weight of all animals of a given species. Each square represents one percent of the world’s mammal biomass. The dominance of humans is clear. We account for more than one-third of mammal biomass. Our biomass is more than seven times greater than all wild mammals combined. Our livestock and pets, which are primarily cattle, account for 59%. That leaves just 5% as wild mammals, which includes thousands of different species, from elephants and deer to lions and whales. Beyond the totals for humans, livestock, and wild animals, there are a few striking comparisons that we found surprising. Farmed pigs weigh as much as all of the world’s whales, orcas, sea otters, seals, and dolphins combined. All the dogs in the world, including pets and feral dogs, weigh as much as all wild mammals on land. Read more in our new article today by Hannah Ritchie and Fiona Spooner, “Almost all of the world’s mammal biomass is humans and livestock”: https://lnkd.in/enxQt4JY

American homicide victims are mostly men, except when the killer is an intimate partner— Almost 20,000 Americans were murdered in 2023. The chart shows the homicide rates among male and female victims. Men were 2.7 times more likely to die by homicide than women. We can see that for men, most of these murders were committed by friends, neighbors, acquaintances, or strangers (shown as “Other” in the chart) rather than a partner or family member. The opposite is true for women: intimate partners are the biggest threat. Because the risks are different, the most effective responses may differ too. For women, reducing intimate partner violence is a key priority. For men, prevention is more often tied to crime, gangs, and violence among acquaintances or strangers. (This Data Insight was written by Simon van Teutem.) Explore homicide rates for more countries: https://lnkd.in/g_qUYApM

In The OWID Brief newsletter, we have a section where our team writes about interesting things we've been reading lately. In today's edition, we wrote about articles in Transformer and VoxDev: https://lnkd.in/ehu--VJc https://lnkd.in/ezMU5CwR Check out all of today's edition of The OWID Brief: https://lnkd.in/gZCXwmNk Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/gd_4ubhw