UNSAFE sex was identified as one of the leading risk factors leading to death in Zimbabwe for the year 2021, as per IHME in their Global Burden of Disease analysis for 2024.
Air pollution and High Blood Pressure were also identified as high risk factors leading to death.
A risk factor is a condition or behavior that increases the likelihood of developing a given disease or injury, or an outcome such as death.
The impact of a risk factor is estimated in different ways.
For example, a common approach is to estimate the number of deaths that would occur if the risk factor was absent.
People can be exposed to multiple risk factors, which contribute to their disease or death. Because of this, the number of deaths caused by each risk factor is typically estimated separately.
