Weekly Article: Milennium Development Goals Revisited

by Rasha Sawaya
Children's National

We haven't mentioned millennium goals in a while! :D A few articles I read recently, made me think about it all again...

The MDG # 4 is to Reduce Childhood Mortality. Specifically, to reduce by 2/3, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate. This was still at 6.9 Million in 2011. 75% of which are caused by 6 conditions:Neonatal, Pneumonia, Diarrhea, Malaria, Measles and HIV/AIDS. We're soon going to be in 2015!

On Sept 13, Time published Saving More Lives: Global Child Mortality Rates Drop. Where the decrease in Under five-mortality rate is hailed: 12 million/day in 1990 to 6.6 million/day in 2012! Nearly a 50% drop... yet of course there is always more to do.

Interestingly, recently, World Vision published The Killer Gap Report: A Global Index of Health Inequality for Children. This report demonstrates that although the mortality rates have dropped (as reported above), the most vulnerable and poorest children are still not reached. 

World Vision’s Global Health Gap Index ranks each country according to the size of the gap between their health rich and health poor using four indicators: Life Expectancy, Personal cost of using health services, The adolescent fertility rate, Coverage of health services.

The top 10 are (maybe not surprising to most): France, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Finland, Germany, Sweden (also the 1st country to give permanent residency to current Syrian Refugees!), Slovenia, Cuba (the only middle income country) and Switzerland.

Noteworthy, the US only ranks 46! (many of us already suspected such disparities just by caring for our DC population). Adolescent fertility and health personnel disparities appear to be the major causes of this gap.

And finally, just if you're curious, a new website World RePORT, still in trial, is a collection of Global Health research Databases. You can read more about it in the Lancet: Database on Global Health Research in Africa.

On this website (still limited data)you can find a map of Africa where "big" research is being done. It is still limited data, but it could be a resource for:

1- where one can start if interested in working in a specific country
2- where to go to do innovative research - in a "blank slate" country...