Causes of Death are the diseases, injuries, and pathological processes that bring about the cessation of life, classified by epidemiology and forensic medicine into underlying, immediate, and contributing causes. A broad distinction separates natural causes—chronic and acute disease such as cardiovascular disease, c…
Causes of Death are the diseases, injuries, and pathological processes that bring about the cessation of life, classified by epidemiology and forensic medicine into underlying, immediate, and contributing causes. A broad distinction separates natural causes—chronic and acute disease such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, infection, and respiratory failure—from external causes including trauma, poisoning, and violence. Accurate determination relies on clinical records, Death certification, and autopsy, which can reveal unexpected findings such as sudden unexpected Death associated with thymic hypertrophy or fatal hemorrhage from occult malignancy. Mortality data underpin public-health surveillance, risk-factor identification, and the targeting of preventive interventions, and require careful attribution of immediate events to underlying conditions. Patterns vary by age, region, and clinical setting, encompassing intrauterine and pediatric mortality, deaths from infectious disease, and outcomes during epidemics. Research relevant to this area examines sudden unexpected Death in autopsy series, profiles of patients who died in hospital, fatal presentations of advanced malignancy, intrauterine deaths with international comparison, risk factors and predictors of pediatric mortality, and analyses of mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic. This peer-reviewed literature reflects the forensic, clinical, and epidemiological study of mortality, situating the determination and analysis of causes of Death within the broader scientific examination of Death and its determinants.
12 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
The 12 articles above have been cited 9 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Causes of Death, linking to each citing work.