The Most Dangerous Countries to Travel to

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By Emily von Hoffmann on August 10, 2016

From the terror attacks in Nice, France to the ongoing spread of the Zika virus, the past year has been a dizzying one in terms of violence and disease outbreaks throughout the world. These factors, among others, increase the likelihood travelers will be required to stay up to date on travel safety advisories. Using 2016 data from the Canadian government and The Global Health Data Exchange, HealthGrove, a health visualization site by Graphiq, created an ascending list of the most dangerous countries to travel to.

The Canadian Travel Advice and Advisories data comprises four major categories — “exercise normal security precautions,” “exercise a high degree of caution,” “avoid nonessential travel” and “avoid all travel.” HealthGrove's list includes countries with at least an "exercise a high degree of caution" rating or higher and nations are ranked by worsening travel advisories. Ties were broken by using the Travel Mortality Index, which provides an aggregate score representing the likelihood of death caused by traveling to a given country. The higher the index, the higher the probability of traveler death. The causes of death in the Index vary from diseases like Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS to causes like “interpersonal violence,” “exposure to forces of nature,” “collective violence” and “legal intervention.” The variation in causes explains why you’ll see France, for example, with a score (116.2), which is separated from that of Honduras (120.4) by only a few points.