NDI
Clay Indices · Cross-national mortality reference

What nations die of, by the numbers

A free, public reference. Pick any two national measures and see the relationship across every country with data — published raw, ranked, and sourced. Data about nations, organized by nation, compared across nations. Not a record-lookup service; we never identify individuals.

The instrument

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Two-axis scatter across 212 countries, with a live correlation gauge, a raw ↔ age-standardized death-rate switch, and a male-vs-female comparison mode.

Rankings
The mortality gap
Who dies sooner, and by how much — the differences between the sexes that hold in every country with data.
Ranking · Adult mortality gap

The male mortality penalty

In every country with data, men are more likely than women to die between 15 and 60. This ranks the size of that gap — male adult mortality minus female, per 1,000.

Ranking · Old-age sex ratio

The missing men

Among people over 65, how many men survive for every 100 women? Where the number is lowest, decades of higher male mortality have thinned the ranks. Ranked from fewest men.

Ranking · Female minus male life expectancy

The life-expectancy gap between women and men

Women outlive men in every country with data. This ranks the size of the gap at birth, in years — widest across the former Soviet bloc, narrowest where it never quite closes.

The age trap
Why the country with the most deaths per head is often a rich one. The same mortality, counted three ways.
Ranking · Crude death rate

Crude death rate, and why a rich country tops it

Deaths per 1,000 residents of any age. Monaco leads the world — not because it's dangerous, but because it's a wealthy retirement haven full of elderly residents. The number is real; what it counts is age structure as much as mortality. For the mortality signal, see the age-standardized rate.

Ranking · Age-standardized death rate

The real death rate

Deaths per 1,000, reweighted to one standard age structure so a young country and an old one compare fairly. This is the mortality signal with age stripped out — and it reorders the crude-rate list completely.

Ranking · Population aged 65+

The oldest societies on Earth

The share of the population aged 65 and over. Read this next to the crude death rate and the link is hard to miss — old populations post high death rates because death rates track grey hair.

Ranking · Survival past childhood

Life expectancy at 60

If you reach 60, how many years do you have left? This strips out child mortality and ranks what's left — further years expected at age 60, both sexes.

Development and death
The mortality that falls as countries get richer — and the deaths of childbirth and early life that fall fastest.
Ranking · Deaths before age one

Infant mortality

Deaths before a first birthday, per 1,000 live births. One of the sharpest signals of a country's development there is.

Ranking · Deaths in childbirth

Maternal mortality

Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. The spread between the safest and most dangerous countries to give birth in is among the widest in all of mortality data.

Ranking · Premature NCD mortality

The odds of an early death from the big four

The probability that a 30-year-old dies of heart disease, cancer, diabetes or chronic lung disease before turning 70. Age-bounded, so no Monaco confound — just the risk of an early death from the diseases of modern life.

How we live and die
The habits and hazards behind the numbers: weight, drink, despair, and the roads.
Ranking · Adult obesity

The obesity transition

The share of adults with a body-mass index of 30 or more. The Pacific islands top the world; the link to national wealth is real, up to a point.

Ranking · Recorded alcohol per adult

Where the world drinks most

Recorded litres of pure alcohol per adult aged 15 and over. A caveat worth stating plainly: this counts only recorded alcohol, and the home-distilled spirits that do much of the damage in the heaviest-drinking countries never make the official figures.

Ranking · Age-standardized suicide rate

Suicide mortality

Age-standardized suicide deaths per 100,000 people. Presented as clinical data, ranked and sourced.

Ranking · Road-traffic deaths

The most dangerous roads on Earth

Deaths from road-traffic injury per 100,000 people, ranked. Where the roads kill the most.

Comparisons · two measures at once
Comparison · Health spending vs longevity

What a year of life costs

Health spending per person against life expectancy. The returns are steep where spending is low and flatten where it's high — and one country spends the most for a middling result.

Comparison · Military vs health spending

Guns and butter, by nation

Military spending per person against health spending per person. Presented raw and ranked. Draw your own conclusions.

Comparison · CO2 vs life expectancy

The carbon cost of a long life

Carbon-dioxide emissions per person against life expectancy at birth. Longer lives and heavier emissions climb together — but the countries that break the pattern are the whole interest. Some buy long lives on little carbon; others emit enormously for no extra years.

Charts
Chart · Deaths by age

The shape of death

What share of deaths fall in each age band — bimodal in the poorest countries, a single late peak in the richest.

Notes
Notes · The male mortality penalty

It's more dangerous to be a man

In every country with data, men are likelier than women to die between 15 and 60. There are no exceptions. The size of the gap is the story.

Notes · The crude-rate trap

The country with the most deaths is one of the richest

Monaco has the highest death rate on Earth. It is also the safest, oldest, richest place most people will ever visit. Both things are true, and the gap between them is the most useful lesson in mortality data.

Notes · The spending frontier

What a year of life costs, and why America overpays

Spend a little more on health and people live a lot longer — until they don't. The returns flatten, then vanish. One country spends more per person than any other on Earth and gets a middling result.