Statistics on Health
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A more descriptive post on health and human rights is here.
Content:
1. Number of health workers
2. Calorie intake
3. Health spending
4. Child mortality
5. HIV/AIDS
6. Maternal mortality
7. Life expectancy
8. Female genital mutilation (FGM)
1. Number of health workers
One measure of health is the number of doctors and other health workers per capita, on the assumption that more doctors and more health workers per capita means better health care and better health care means better health:
(source)
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2. Calorie intake
Another measure is the level of daily calorie intake per person. Malnourishment leads to health problems, as does over-nourishment. Worldwide, roughly the same number of people are starving as are overweight, and this in an age when the world is producing more food than ever before:
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3. Health spending
Another indicator is the level of government and/or individual health care spending. One assumes that the more governments and individuals spend on health care, the better their health. This isn’t always true (spending can be wasteful or misdirected), but still it’s the case that very low levels of spending indicate poor health care systems:
Here are 2 graphs I found on Matt Yglesias’ blog, which, when taken together, paint a rather gloomy picture of the quality of healthcare in the U.S. (a reminder of the way in which this is a human rights issue can be found here):
Compared to other developed countries, the U.S. spends more on healthcare, but not, it seems, with a lot of success: life expectancy, one if not the most important indicator of the quality of public health, is not as good as elsewhere.
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4. Child mortality
However, there’s still a long way to go, especially in developing countries. From the following graph we can see that in several African countries as well as in India, 1 in 10 babies die before they reach the age of 1. That’s horrendous.
Inequalities are extreme: Angola had the highest IMR in 2007: 184. And Sweden the lowest: 2.8. In a country like Bangladesh, 153,000 newborns die each year. Multiply this with the number of non-newborns death before the age of 1, and with a number of similar countries, and with a number of consecutive years, and you have an enormous massacre.
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5. HIV/AIDS
In 2007, an estimated 33.2 million people lived with AIDS/HIV worldwide, and it killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children. Over three-quarters of these deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, retarding economic growth and destroying human capital. From Wikipedia
AIDS has become the leading cause of death in Sub-Saharan Africa where approx. 1 in 4 deaths is caused by AIDS:
Obviously, life expectancy in many countries hardest hit by AIDS has fallen dramatically:
AIDS has also worsened some existing problems such as poverty, lack of education etc. It is estimated that 11.4 million AIDS orphans live in the region. Some predict that AIDS will even lead to economic collapse in some African countries. Ostracism, rejection and discrimination are other consequences. Homosexuals patients must now suffer a double stigma, their AIDS reinforcing the pre-existing prejudices against their homosexuality.
In the 1990s in the US, it also became the leading cause of death in adults aged between 25 and 44, but the introduction of more effective drugs has reduced the mortality of the disease quite effectively:
(A) Annual AIDS deaths in sub-Saharan Africa (population 640 million) compared with those in USA (population 273 million). (B) Deaths in the USA in more detail, showing the five leading causes of death in men and women 25–44 years old. Over the course of ten years, AIDS came to be the leading cause of death in this generally healthy age group. The sharp decline in mortality followed the introduction of highly active anti-retroviral therapy, although the prevalence of HIV infection has not decreased. (Data obtained from UNAIDS and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.). Robin A. Weiss
However, the same progress has not occurred in Africa because drugs are expensive and routine access to antiretroviral medication is not easily available. Efforts to prevent the infection from occurring, such as the promotion of safe sex and needle-exchange programmes, encounter cultural or religious obstacles. As a result, we are turning what could be a manageable chronic illness into a death sentence for many, thereby also encouraging the spread of HIV to others.
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6. Maternal mortality
Maternal death, or maternal mortality, is the death of a woman during or shortly after a pregnancy. More than half a million women die during pregnancy or childbirth every year, and many millions suffer from inadequately treated complications. About half of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and about one third occur in South Asia – the two regions together account for about 85 per cent of all maternal deaths. In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman’s risk of maternal death is 1 in 22, compared with 1 in 8.000 in developed countries.
(source)
These are the major causes of maternal mortality, as well as the basic remedies:
(source)
There has been some progress for some indicators, for example the number of assisted deliveries:
(source)
Maternal mortality also severely impacts on the children who are left motherless. These children are 10 times more likely than their peers to die within two years of their mothers’ deaths. Young girls who survice are often forced to leave school to care for siblings, and hence diminish their chances of avoiding poverty later in life.
There is a strong correlation between the age of the mother and maternal mortality. Girls between the ages of l0 and 14 are five times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than women aged 20-24. Girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are twice as likely to die:
(source)
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7. Life expectancy
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8. Female genital mutilation (FGM)
The BBC estimates that FGM affects 100 million women and girls annually. UNICEF estimates that 70 million women and girls aged 15–49 in 27 countries of Africa and the Middle East have undergone the practice (most girls undergo FGM when they are between 7 and 10 years old). The fact that younger women are less likely to have experienced FGM shows that the practice is becoming slowly less common.
The following graph shows the percentages of girls and women aged 15–49 who have experienced FGM in some countries in Africa (source: UNICEF):
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