How can i find out the number of deaths and causes during the 20th Century.

Quesiton: How can i find out the number of deaths and causes during
the 20th Century.
 
Answer:

From MountainView Research, Inc.: 

[ http://www.mvr.org/Papers/soa-partA/node8.html ]

"In Canada and the US, for both sexes, circulatory diseases are the
leading cause (responsible for about 40 percent of deaths) followed by
malignant neoplasms (responsible for about 20 percent of deaths),
respiratory disease (about 9 percent) and digestive diseases (about
3.5 percent); infectious diseases cause only about 1.4 percent of
deaths in the US and about half that percentage in Canada."


Below is a text-only copy of a chart from
http://www.mvr.org/Papers/soa-partA/node8.html which breaks down
causes of death by percentage ((for example, 0.4 = 40%, M=Male,
F=female. I placed the chart here for convenience, but it's easier to
read if you look at it on the actual website.

Cause of Death USA Canada Mexico 
 M F M F M F 
Infect. dis. 0.013 0.015 0.006 0.007 0.093 0.103 
Malig. neoplasms 0.200 0.198 0.231 0.231 0.067 0.085 
Circul. dis. 0.400 0.459 0.373 0.412 0.172 0.233 
Resp. dis. 0.090 0.089 0.090 0.079 0.101 0.110 
Digest. dis. 0.034 0.036 0.036 0.038 0.092 0.061 
Accidents 0.097 0.041 0.087 0.045 0.197 0.062 
Table 3: Fraction of total deaths attributable to selected causes,
1990

Basically, The US/Canada figures are representative throughout the
world for developed countries, while the Mexico figures are
representative of 3rd world nations. So, to get actual numbers for the
world-wide deaths, use a total world population of 6 billion
(6,000,000,000) people, and use the percentages in the chart against
that number.

For example, I would take the average of developed and 3rd world
nations (i.e., since the US figure for 20th century Accidental deaths
is 0.41 and the Mexico figure for 20th century accidental deaths  is
.097, then I would take the average of those two (0.041 + 0.097 =
1.38/2 =0.069 ), and calculate what 6.9% of 6 billion is for the
actual number of people worldwide who will die from accidental deaths.

Google search strategy: Keywords "20th century causes [of] death"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=20th+century+causes+of+death

Good luck in continuing your inquiries!

I was particularly looking for all deaths and all causes in the 20th
century, with particular focus on death from war, crime, genocide, and
other forms of violent death, whether the purpetrator be man,
government or organization.  I also was looking for total deaths and
causes to compare.  Thanks, though.  I appreciate the researcher's
efforts.

Firstly, I do not think that Mexico can be considered representative
of very underdeveloped countries in Africa and Asia, where parasitic
diseases take a very heavy toll.  Also, it does not have the same
percentage of HIV+ individuals as some African countries.

The WHO produces mortality statistics for some individual countries. 
I am not sure how extensive is the coverage, but you can check this
out at http://www3.who.int/whosis/menu.cfm?path=whosis,whsa&language=english
for individual countries since the mid 1990s, and at
http://www.who.int/whr/2001/main/en/annex/annex2.htm for year 2000
statistics by WHO region.

However, you still have the problem that there will have been massive
changes in the patterns of disease and death in the course of the 20th
century, due to the discovery of antibiotics and other ground-breaking
therapies as well as due to changes in lifestyle and nutrition,
pollution levels and a host of other factors.  I have not found this
information on the Web, but can refer you to a hard copy book:
International mortality statistics  by Michael Alderson, published by
Facts on File Inc., New York, 1981, 524 pp, ISBN 0871965143. This book
provides mortality statistics for the 20th century for European and
other selected countries in tabular form by sex, calendar period,
cause of death and country.

Don't forget also that disease is not the only cause of death. Wars
will also have an impact on mortality statistics, as will
transport-related deaths, murders, etc, and the numbers of deaths from
these causes will also have changed over the course of the 20th
century.

If you are looking for absolute figures (ie, the twentieth century saw
the following number of people die from the following causes...) you
will have a further problem.

Many of the century's great disasters, natural and man-made, are the
subject of hot debate.  How many Armenians were killed by the Turks in
the early years of the century?  How many died of fighting vs. famine
during the Russian revolution/civil war?  How about Stalin's purges,
and the famines of the farm-collectivization years?  Even things like
bombing deaths in Germany during WWII are iffy, and the Germans are
certainly no slouches in the record-keeping department!

The intent of this comment is not to discourage you, just to point out
that in using the data you've collected you will need to be clear that
there is a very large margin for error!

I was particularly looking for all deaths and all causes in the 20th
century, with particular focus on death from war, crime, genocide, and
other forms of violent death, whether the purpetrator be man,
government or organization.  I also was looking for total deaths and
causes to compare.

I've been to the WHO, and they do not cover deaths from the above
causes, nor does any other organization that I can find.  That's why i
was hoping for a clue here.  I appreciate all efforts and will check
out every link listed.  Thanks.