Trends, measurements and indicators
Although we have seen global improvements in child health, there is no room for complacency. Rates of improvement in child survival are slowing and even reversing in some countries, as a result of persistent and worsening inequity, fragmenting health services, and newer problems like HIV and AIDS. Nearly 11 million children still die every year before the age of five - 98 per cent of them in poor countries - and a massive 3.9 million babies die before they are a month old.
The child health agenda has been reinvigorated by the Millennium Development Goals and renewed advocacy, but information on child survival, childhood diseases and health care issues in the developing world is still scarce.
- Progress for children: a report card on water and sanitation
- This issue of Progress for Children by UNICEF reports on whether the world is on course to reach Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7, and the 2015 targets of reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
Recommended reading
- Child survival 1: where and why are 10 million children dying every year?
- ( R.E. Black; S.S. Morris; J. Bryce / The Lancet , 2003)
- Recommended reading
- Substantial reductions in child mortality occurred in low and middle income countries in the late twentieth century. However, more than 10 million children younger than five years still die every yea...
- The decline in child mortality: a reappraisal
- ( O.B. Ahmad; A.D. Lopez; M. Inoue / Bulletin of the World Health Organization : the International Journal of Public Health , 2000)
- Recommended reading
- During the twentieth century there were dramatic declines in mortality among children under five years of age in almost all countries of the world. However, surveys conducted during the early 1980s we...
- The State of the World's Children 2006: excluded and invisible
- ( United Nations [UN] Children's Fund , 2006)
- The 2006 State of the World's Children report provides an assessment of the world's most vulnerable children, whose rights to a safe and healthy childhood are exceptionally difficult to protect. These...
Latest Additions
- Weak health systems obstruct progress towards achieving the MDGs for maternal and child health
- ( World Health Organization , 2008)
- This World Health Organization report tracks coverage for interventions needed to attain the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. The report is based on data drawn from national surveys and global da...
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Quality of policies and institutions increases the effectiveness of health aid in reducing infant mortality
- ( P. Mishra;D. Newhouse / International Monetary Fund Working Papers , 2007)
- This IMF working paper examines the relationship between health aid and infant mortality, using data from 118 countries between 1973 and 2004. Although there is little evidence that aid promotes econo...
