January 31, 2007
Worldmapper Maps Health
Some of the newest maps on Worldmapper highlights international differences in health, e.g., this one on infant mortality:
Infant mortality is babies who die during the first year of their life. In 2002 there were 7.2 million infant deaths worldwide; 5.4% of all babies born died within their first year, including 2.3% in their first week.
The territory with the most infant deaths was India, at 1.7 million, or 24% of the world total. In India, for every 100 babies born alive, almost 7 die in the following 12 months.
In 22 territories the rate is over 1 infant death for every 10 live births. All of these 22 territories are in Africa. The highest infant mortality rate is in Sierra Leone where 16.5 babies die, of every 100 born alive.
Territory size shows the proportion of infant deaths worldwide that occurred there in 2002. Infant deaths are deaths of babies during their first year of life.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 11:07 AM | Permalink





Comments
Astonishing about India and China, given that the highest infant mortality rates seem to be COINCIDING with the greatest overpopulation, which suggests the double bind of what those countries might look like if their infant mortality problems were in fact solved.
Posted by: Dan Quiles | Jan 31, 2007 5:05:27 PM
China's massive representation on this map leads me to believe there is a possible intentional misreporting of the numbers based on a different working definition. Are gender favoritism and the one-child-per-family policies being downplayed as simple infant mortality instead of mass infanticide?
Posted by: Stewart Watkins | Jan 31, 2007 8:40:55 PM
Dan, the map tracks the absolute number of infants who die, not the infant mortality rate. That's why Sierra Leone and Afghanistan are smaller than India and China.
Posted by: Alon Levy | Jan 31, 2007 11:07:59 PM
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