Vaccines accounted for 40% of the decline in infant mortality over the last 50 years

Child mortality rates in China have fallen from more than 20% in 1950 to less than 1% today.

But this steady progress was interrupted in the late 1950s during the “Great Leap Forward”. This was China’s national plan to industrialize rapidly, but it resulted in widespread famine and economic turmoil.

As the chart shows, child mortality rates spiked in China over this period. This change was so dramatic that it is also clearly visible in the global trend. This data comes from the UN’s World Population Prospects.

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Drug-related death rates have increased six-fold in Canada and the United States over two decades, according to recent data from the World Health Organization’s Global Health Estimates. We have just updated our charts with the latest data.

In 2000, drug-related death rates in Canada and the United States were reasonably similar to rates in other countries. But since then, deaths from drugs, particularly opioids, have risen sharply.

Opioids include prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin, synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and drugs like heroin.

Over recent years, opioids have become common in the management of chronic pain, and they’ve become much easier to access on the illicit drug market.

Explore data on deaths from drug use and other health issues in our Global Health Explorer →

Skilled health staff can reduce the risk of mothers and infants dying during childbirth.

In most countries, almost all births are now attended by trained health professionals. But as you can see on the map, this is the case for less than half of births in some of the world’s poorest countries.

This is based on data from Demographic and Health Surveys and UNICEF. Note that this doesn’t mean births in these countries aren’t attended by any skilled staff; it simply measures staff with professional medical training.

Improving access to essential healthcare and services could help reduce maternal and infant mortality rates.

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Infancy used to be an extremely dangerous time of life.

As the chart shows, around 20% of girls in Sweden died before their first birthday in the 18th century. This was higher than the risk among 80-year-olds — at that age, 10% to 20% died each year.

Since then, the risk of dying has reduced across all ages, but the reduction has been most profound for infants. Rates have fallen 100-fold.

This progress has come from improvements in hygiene, clean water and sanitation, vaccination, nutrition, neonatal healthcare, and surgery.

The data comes from the Human Mortality Database and the United Nations World Population Prospects. I’ve shown data from Sweden, which has the longest historical records, stretching back to the 1750s.

Explore the same data for many more countries →

According to the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, in 2023, Chile produced 9.4% of its primary energy from solar sources, the highest share in any country. When we look at electricity alone, solar produced 20% of the total.

This marks a trend of continued year-on-year growth in a country that, just a decade earlier, generated almost no electricity from solar.

Chile's growth has been faster than that of other solar champions like Spain and Australia, where the adoption of these technologies started earlier.

Much of Chile's solar energy is captured in the Atacama Desert. This region, in Northern Chile, receives the highest level of sunlight exposure in the world and is home to Latin America’s first solar thermal plant.

Explore data on energy production and sources, country by country →

The chart shows net migration trends for Venezuela, Peru, Chile, and Colombia from 1950 to 2023. This is the net difference between immigrants coming into a country and emigrants leaving. This data published by the UN World Population Prospects shows how significant this demographic event is in the region’s recent history.

Starting around 2015, Venezuela's net migration dropped sharply, with a record 1.36 million people emigrating in 2018. The timing of this shift, accelerating from 2015 onwards, coincides with Venezuela's worsening economic and political instability.

At the same time, wealthier countries like Peru, Chile, and Colombia experienced significant increases in net migration, which suggests they have become major destinations for Venezuelan migrants. This trend is even clearer when visualizing where immigrants from Venezuela moved to.

Explore net migration patterns in other countries →

Unsafe sanitation is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. It increases the risk of many fatal diseases, including cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio.

Unfortunately, over 40% of the world does not have access to safe sanitation facilities. This is based on estimates from the WHO/UNICEF’s Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene.

The chart shows the share of the global population that has access to safe sanitation over time. While rates have increased, particularly over the last decade, they still fall far short of the UN’s target of universal access in 2030.

Increasing access to safe sanitation would save many lives from preventable infectious diseases.

Explore the data →