Mortality statistics: every cause of death in England and Wales, visualised

The annual mortality statistics published by the Office for National Statistics are out today for 2010 - and provides an incredibly detailed breakdown of the most morbid dataset imagineable.

We may worry about murders or swine flu, but the big killers of heart disease and cancer are much more significant in terms of public health. What is also striking is how constant many of these numbers of deaths are - why do around 17,000 people die each year in accidents, for instance? Why do around 200 people accidentally drown every year?

Besides the graphic above (which you can download as a PDF), we've summarised two of the datasets below: major causes of death and deaths from external causes - ie, accidents or assaults. If you want to find out how many people died after being stung by bees or falling down stairs, this is the place to look.

Guardian health editor Sarah Boseley says the striking thing is the numbers dying of dementia and Alzheimers - which are confusingly listed separately on the ONS spreadsheet but rightly put together in the analysis.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show an 11.% rise in dementia deaths in the last year – between 2009 and 2010 - to a total of 25,106. More than two-thirds – 18,349 - were in women, in part because they live longer than men.

Alzheimer's and dementia are now the third leading cause of death for women, after heart disease and stroke. Falls in other, more preventable and treatable, diseases are largely responsible for a 26% rise in dementia deaths over the five years between 2005 and 2010. In the same period, heart disease deaths dropped by 30% in women. Diseases of the urinary system – also linked to old age – increased by 8.1% in that time and lung cancer deaths rose by 3.5%, as smoking continued to take its long-term toll, but most other trends were down.

Among men, deaths from dementia and Alzheimer's have risen by 21% between 2005 and 2010, while liver disease has show the other significant increase – up 3%. As in women, heart disease deaths fell substantially over the same period – by 26% - but they are still the leading cause of death, killing 40,721 men in 2010 and accounting for 17% of all male deaths. Dementia comes eighth among the leading causes of male deaths, accounting for 7,347 last year

Essentially, other causes of death are going down - and people have to die of something.

And, whatever we may worry about, this is one of the safest times to be alive, ever - as the chart below shows.

Roll over line for numbers

The data itself comes from death certificates and records the primary cause of death - which is why the influenza numbers are lower than other estimates. If you get flu, which then lowers your resistance enough for pneumonia to kill you, for instance, pneumonia would be the main cause of death recorded.

The NHS has visualised previous years' data already with its atlas of risk.

Can you do something better? The full data is below for you to download.

Data summary

Download the data

• DATA: download the full spreadsheet

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