Our World
in Data
Oxford Martin School logoUniversity of Oxford logoGlobal Change Data Lab logo
Data

Autopsy rate

About this data

Source
Paratz et al. (2023); World Health Organization (2022) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
July 13, 2023
Date range
1970–2022
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Paratz et al. – A systematic review of global autopsy rates in all-cause mortality and young sudden death

The data for this indicator is taken from: Paratz ED, Rowe SJ, Stub D, Pflaumer A, La Gerche A. A systematic review of global autopsy rates in all-cause mortality and young sudden death. Heart Rhythm. 2023 Apr;20(4):607-613. doi: 10.1016/j.hrthm.2023.01.008.

Paratz et al., (2023) collates data from a number of published papers and databases, including journal articles, publicly available governmental datasets, press releases, newspaper articles, and annual reports. The year shown reflects the date given in the database or the year of the publication. For Spain and Australia the data is only representative of a region of each country, Catalonia and Victoria, respectively.

Retrieved on
November 26, 2024
Retrieved from
https://www.heartrhythmjournal.com/article/S1547-5271(23)00027-9/fulltext
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Paratz, E. D., Rowe, S. J., Stub, D., Pflaumer, A., & La Gerche, A. (2023). A systematic review of global autopsy rates in all-cause mortality and young sudden death. Heart Rhythm, 20(4), 607-613.

The data for this indicator is taken from: Paratz ED, Rowe SJ, Stub D, Pflaumer A, La Gerche A. A systematic review of global autopsy rates in all-cause mortality and young sudden death. Heart Rhythm. 2023 Apr;20(4):607-613. doi: 10.1016/j.hrthm.2023.01.008.

Paratz et al., (2023) collates data from a number of published papers and databases, including journal articles, publicly available governmental datasets, press releases, newspaper articles, and annual reports. The year shown reflects the date given in the database or the year of the publication. For Spain and Australia the data is only representative of a region of each country, Catalonia and Victoria, respectively.

Retrieved on
November 26, 2024
Retrieved from
https://www.heartrhythmjournal.com/article/S1547-5271(23)00027-9/fulltext
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Paratz, E. D., Rowe, S. J., Stub, D., Pflaumer, A., & La Gerche, A. (2023). A systematic review of global autopsy rates in all-cause mortality and young sudden death. Heart Rhythm, 20(4), 607-613.

World Health Organization – European Health for All database

Since the mid-1980s, Member States of the WHO European Region have been reporting essential health-related statistics to the Health for All (HFA) family of databases, making it one of WHO's oldest sources of data. As it is based on reported data, rather than estimates, the HFA family of databases is also particularly valuable.

HFA databases bring together the indicators that are part of major monitoring frameworks relevant to the Region, such as Health 2020 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The indicators cover basic demographics, health status, health determinants and risk factors, as well as health care resources, expenditures and more.

Retrieved on
July 13, 2023
Retrieved from
https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_545-6410-autopsy-rate-for-all-deaths/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
WHO Regional Office for Europe. European Health for All database (HFA-DB). Published 2022-09-01. https://gateway.euro.who.int.

Since the mid-1980s, Member States of the WHO European Region have been reporting essential health-related statistics to the Health for All (HFA) family of databases, making it one of WHO's oldest sources of data. As it is based on reported data, rather than estimates, the HFA family of databases is also particularly valuable.

HFA databases bring together the indicators that are part of major monitoring frameworks relevant to the Region, such as Health 2020 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The indicators cover basic demographics, health status, health determinants and risk factors, as well as health care resources, expenditures and more.

Retrieved on
July 13, 2023
Retrieved from
https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_545-6410-autopsy-rate-for-all-deaths/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
WHO Regional Office for Europe. European Health for All database (HFA-DB). Published 2022-09-01. https://gateway.euro.who.int.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Autopsy rate”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from Paratz et al., World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-000143/grapher/autopsy-rate.html [online resource] (archived on May 12, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Paratz et al. (2023); World Health Organization (2022) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Paratz et al. (2023); World Health Organization (2022) – processed by Our World in Data. “Autopsy rate” [dataset]. Paratz et al., “A systematic review of global autopsy rates in all-cause mortality and young sudden death”; World Health Organization, “European Health for All database” [original data]. Retrieved May 12, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-000143/grapher/autopsy-rate.html (archived on May 12, 2026).

Download

Quick download

You can download the visualization as an image or download the chart data.