Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Multicenter Study
. 2008 Jun 28;336(7659):1482-6.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.a137. Epub 2008 Jun 19.

Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme

Ziad Obermeyer  1 , Christopher J L Murray, Emmanuela Gakidou
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme

Ziad Obermeyer et al. BMJ. .

Erratum in

  • BMJ. 2008 Jun 28;336(7659): doi: 10.1136/bmj.a498.

Abstract

Objective: To provide an accurate estimate of violent war deaths.

Design: Analysis of survey data on mortality, adjusted for sampling bias and censoring, from nationally representative surveys designed to measure population health. Estimated deaths compared with estimates in database of passive reports.

Setting: 2002-3 World health surveys, in which information was collected from one respondent per household about sibling deaths, including whether such deaths resulted from war injuries.

Main outcome measure: Estimated deaths from war injuries in 13 countries over 50 years.

Results: From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war deaths (95% confidence interval 3.0 to 8.7 million) in 13 countries, ranging from 7000 in the Republic of Congo [corrected] to 3.8 million in Vietnam. From 1995 to 2002 survey data indicate 36,000 war deaths annually (16,000 to 71,000) in the 13 countries studied. Data from passive surveillance, however, indicated a figure of only a third of this. On the basis of the relation between world health survey data and passive reports, we estimate 378,000 globalwar deaths annually from 1985-94, the last years for which complete passive surveillance data were available.

Conclusions: The use of data on sibling history from peacetime population surveys can retrospectively estimate mortality from war. War causes more deaths than previously estimated, and there is no evidence to support a recent decline in war deaths.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

None
Fig 1 Fraction of all violent war deaths by age and sex in 13 survey countries, 1955-2002. As figure considers only war deaths, bars sum to 1
None
Fig 2 Trend in violent war deathsper year (thousands) in Vietnam, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, and Bosnia: world health survey (WHS) estimates with 95% confidence intervals and Uppsala/PRIO data with low-high range (where available)
None
Fig 3 Violent war deaths per year (thousands) in 13 survey countries: world health survey (WHS) estimates with 95% confidence intervals and data from Uppsala/PRIO with low-high range (where available)
None
Fig 4 World health survey (WHS) estimates against Uppsala/PRIO data for total violent war deaths(thousands) from 1955 to 2002, with equivalence line at which survey and Uppsala/PRIO estimates are equal (log scale)
None
Fig 5 Uppsala/PRIO violent war deaths per year from 1945 to 1994 and adjusted war deaths per year (thousands) with 95% confidence intervals, based on relation between Uppsala/PRIO data and world health survey (WHS) estimates
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • Measuring deaths from conflict.
    Garfield R. Garfield R. BMJ. 2008 Jun 28;336(7659):1446-7. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a146. Epub 2008 Jun 19. BMJ. 2008. PMID: 18566044 Free PMC article.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Burnham G, Lafta R, Doocy S, Roberts L. Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey. Lancet 2006;368:1421-8. - PubMed
    1. Coghlan B, Brennan R, Ngoy P, Dofara D, Otto B, Clements M, et al. Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: a nationwide survey. Lancet 2006;367:44-51. - PubMed
    1. Depoortere E, Checchi F, Broillet F, Gerstl S, Minetti A, Gayraud O, et al. Violence and mortality in West Darfur, Sudan (2003-04): epidemiological evidence from four surveys. Lancet 2004;364:1315-20. - PubMed
    1. Grein T, Checchi F, Escriba JM, Tamrat A, Karunakara U, Stokes C, et al. Mortality among displaced former UNITA members and their families in Angola: a retrospective cluster survey. BMJ 2003;327:650-3. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hagan J, Palloni A. Death in Darfur. Science 2006;313:1578-9. - PubMed

Publication types