This chart shows you how you’re most likely to die

Don’t worry. We’re not going to tell you exactly how you’re going to die. We’re just going to tell you how you’re most likely going to die. There’s definitely a difference, right?

Thanks to Nathan Yau of FlowingData, we now have a handy-dandy death chart in our possession. This chart is based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s reported 113 causes of death, which have conveniently been divided into 20 categories involving both external causes and disease. There’s also the Underlying Cause of Death: a database estimating the number of people who die from each cause.

With all these fatal facts in his hands, Yau created his death chart, a work of graphical art that takes age, race, and gender into account. From there, viewers can select either their gender or race (not both at the same time) to see what is most likely going to cause their demise. You can then click on each cause to view them individually.

So, what does it all mean? Well, the height of each colored section tells you the percentage of people who died from a cause, out of everyone who died at that specific age. Example: When you look at females who passed away when they were 60 years old, you’ll see that around 40% of these women unfortunately lost their battle with cancer.

Yau mentions that the results depicted for minorities (like American Indians and Asians) appear to be jagged because of population size. Since these races do not account for as many people as others, there is more variation. Because of this, Yau recommends that we “focus on the overall trends and how they change by group.”

To confront mortality from the safety of your screen, you can see Yau’s chart here.