In most countries, democracy is a recent achievement. Dictatorship is far from a distant memory
How old are democracies across the world?
Latest:Our latest articles, updates and announcements
How we’re building a team for better data at Our World in Data
Data is too often published in a way that’s hard to understand, check and build upon – reinforcing the low valuation it gets in society. Here is how we’re trying to break out of this bad equilibrium.Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning. What can we do to reduce this?
Estimates suggest that around every third child in the world suffers from lead poisoning. What can we do to reduce this?Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts?
A growing number of people are interested in switching to plant-based alternatives to dairy. But are they better for the environment, and which is best?The history of the end of poverty has just begun
The decline of global poverty is one of the most important achievements in history, but the end of poverty is still very far away.Many countries have eliminated lead from paint. How do we achieve the same everywhere?
Paint is an important source of lead exposure. Which countries have regulations on its use?Many countries have achieved an impressive reduction in lead poisoning
The phase out of leaded gasoline, and regulations on leaded paints and pipes has led to a dramatic reduction in lead poisoning across many countries.How the world eliminated lead from gasoline
In 2021, Algeria became the last country to ban leaded gasoline. How did the world achieve it?The IEA wants to make their data available to the public – now it is on governments of the world’s rich countries to make this happen
We are just one step away from unlocking the world's energy data for everyone. This would be a massive achievement for progress on energy and climate.What is the COVID-19 Stringency Index?
An explanation of the nine metrics used to calculate the Stringency IndexWe just published our new Global Food Data Explorer
Explore the global food system from field to plate, for all countries in the world.Attitudes to COVID-19 vaccinations
How do attitudes to COVID-19 vaccinations vary across the world; and how are they changing with time?Global economic inequality: what matters most for your living conditions is not who you are, but where you are
How much does it matter to be born into a productive, industrialized economy?How much energy do countries consume when we take offshoring into account?
How do energy footprints compare across the world when we adjust for the goods that we import from overseas?Want to stay up to date on our work? Subscribe to our two newsletters.
We send two regular newsletters so our readers can stay up to date on our work — an immediate update and a biweekly digest.200 years ago, everyone lacked democratic rights. Now, billions of people have them
Half of all countries are democracies. But how many people enjoy democratic rights?Many countries have decoupled economic growth from CO2 emissions, even if we take offshored production into account
It is possible to reduce emissions while growing the economy. But this decoupling needs to happen faster.Easier data reuse and more flexible visualizations - what we in the developer team are working on
Data review: how many people die from air pollution?
This data review presents published estimates of the global death toll from air pollution and provides the context that makes them understandable.How do death rates from COVID-19 differ between people who are vaccinated and those who are not?
To understand how the pandemic is evolving, it’s crucial to know how death rates from COVID-19 are affected by vaccination status.We’ve just published our new data explorer on Natural Disasters
Explore death rates, numbers of people affected, and economic damages from natural disasters across the world.