Good news is no news, says the old journalistic saw. Nonetheless, the New York Times is reporting something that should bring a smile to everyone's face:
For the first time since record keeping began in 1960, the number of deaths of young children around the world has fallen below 10 million a year, according to figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund being released today.
Global public health campaigns are only part of the secret:
This public health triumph has arisen, Unicef officials said, partly from campaigns against measles, malaria and bottle-feeding, and partly from improvements in the economies of most of the world outside Africa.Economic growth is the most powerful weapon we have against human suffering. Too bad no one actually knows how to build or deploy it.
Of course America's infant mortality rate is just about the worst in the developed world.
Ignoring the methodological differences in couting infant mortality, what do you propose we do about the fact that poor black women don't get pre-natal care? It's offered, it's free to them. If you have a solution I'm sure public health official in every major US city would love to hear it.
My understand from reading several studies is that they don't want to go talk to some uppity doctor who speaks down to them, and convince themselves (with encouragement from family members) that they can just go to an emergency room if something goes wrong. How do we combat this? Public education measures? Free transportation? This has all been tried. I await your prescription.
While America's infant mortality rate may not be great, there is ample evidence that comparing America's rate to the rates of other countries is not an apples to apples comparison.
Christina -
I wish I had some answers, but I don't.
there is ample evidence that comparing America's rate to the rates of other countries is not an apples to apples comparison
How so?
Peter,
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition, all babies showing any signs of life, such as muscle activity, a gasp for breath or a heartbeat, should be included as a live birth. The U.S. strictly follows this definition. But many other countries do not.
Switzerland, for instance, doesn't count the deaths of babies shorter than 30 cm, because they are not counted as live births, according to Nicholas Eberstadt, Ph.D., Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute and formerly a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard University Center for Population and Developmental Studies. So, comparing the 1998 infant mortality rates for Switzerland and the U.S., 4.8 and 7.2 per 1,000 births, respectively, is comparing apples and oranges.
Other countries, such as Italy, use different definitions in various parts of their own countries. Eberstadt observes that "underreporting also seems apparent in the proportion of infant deaths different countries report for the first twenty-four hours after birth. In Australia, Canada, and the United States, over one-third of all infant deaths are reported to take place in the first day. ..." In contrast, "Less than one-sixth of France's infant deaths are reported to occur in the first day of life. In Hong Kong, such deaths account for only one-twenty-fifth of all infant deaths."
from http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/3/9/184540.shtml
Megan -
Love to get your thoughts on the Hanson/Cutler health care debate over at Cato.
Is Jane gone forever?
buy now viagra