In the event that you were to judge solely by the amount of travel advisories issued by the U.S. State Department, Mexico are the planet’s most danger-prone nation for U.S. overseas travelers. Far more Americans have been murdered in Mexico — 598 between 2009 and 2016 — than in any other country. Afghanistan, where 84 Americans were killed during the same period, is a distant second.
But that does not mean Mexico is the most dangerous country, because the raw data doesn’t account for the fact that vastly more Americans visit Mexico compared to Afghanistan. What is needed is.
Bearing that in mind, data.world looked in the number of Americans killed in different countries when compared with the number of American visitors to the same countries. Ranking countries based on the Amount of deaths per 100,000 visitors yields the next most-dangerous-10 record, from most to least risky:
1. Pakistan
2. Thailand
3. Philippines
4. Haiti
5. Honduras
6. Nigeria
7. Belize
8. Guyana
9. Egypt
10. Mexico
In a perfect world, the number of State Department warnings may be expected to mirror the above position. If, for example, Americans tend to be 421 percent more likely to be killed in Pakistan than in Mexico, since the data showsthat the State Department should be issuing a correspondingly higher number of Pakistan advisories compared to Mexico advisories. In fact, between 2009 and 2017, 28 Mexico warnings have been issued, versus 25 for Pakistan.
Indeed, the connection between State Department advisories and threat is irregular overall. In some cases, the State Department makes it right. But they don’t give appropriate warnings. For Belize, Guyana, and Guatemala, for instance, no warnings were issued between 2009 and 2017, despite the comparatively substantial levels of danger in those countries. Than are warranted by the death threat, and a number of other countries get more warnings.
The takeaway in the data.world research is that travelers shouldn’t rely upon State Department advisories when assessing a nation’s security quotient. They are as likely to over- or understate the risk since they are to get it right. And for the State Department, the disconnect between warnings and real risk should prompt them to reassess the way they choose which countries to warn citizens about, and also how frequently they issue these warnings.
Reader Reality Check
Do you factor the risk of violent death when choosing which countries to go to?