Humanosphere: A New Way to Measure Progress in Global Health

By Sean McKee, special to Humanosphere

The world has made tremendous progress in global health during the past 25 years, reducing the impact of some major killers like HIV or, well, childbirth, and greatly expanding access to drugs or vaccines to prevent and treat many millions of the poorest people on the planet.

But sustaining that rate of progress is likely to get a lot harder. And measuring success, or failure for that matter, is likely to get more important.

Yahoo: Mixed Report for Global Health Progress

By Mariëtte Le Roux

Paris (AFP) - The world has made progress in curbing infant mortality, stunted growth and other poverty-driven problems, while obesity, alcohol abuse and partner violence has risen, a major review of UN health goals said Wednesday.

"Progress varied widely," said The Lancet medical journal which published the assessment of 188 countries' progress since 1990, measured against the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Economist: Life Expectancy: Who Wants to Live Forever?

By The Data Team

OVER the past 100 years, mankind has made great leaps in eliminating diseases and learning how to keep people alive. The life expectancy of a person born in America in 1900 was just 47 years. Eighty years later that figure had increased to 70 years for men and 77 years for women. But since then progress has slowed: a boy born in America in 2013 is expected to live just six years longer than his 1990 cohort. And not all of his twilight years will be golden.

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