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 Introduction

 Income Poverty

Social Indicators:

Health: 

Health status and health care services for the poor

Health: the problem of AIDS

Education

Water and sanitation

orjblt2.gif (82 bytes) What the Poor Say


Social Indicators

Health: Life expectancy

  • On average, the life expectancy of people living in developing countries rose from 55 years in 1970 to 65 years in 1997, but it still lagged far behind that of OECD countries, which was 78 years in 1997 (Table 8).
  • Thirty-three countries have seen life expectancy decline since 1990. Most are countries hit by the AIDS epidemics. 8 countries lost more than three years (Table 9).

Health: infant and maternal mortality

Actual or projected data on infant mortality are available up to 1997 for most countries. These indicate progress between 1990 and 1997 in all regions, apart from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where there was a slight deterioration in 1997. But the reductions in infant mortality in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa over the last seven years, which were of the order of 10 percent, appear too slow to meet the target set in the International Development Goals for 2015 (a two-third reduction over 1990 levels) (Table 10). Mortality rates have been declining with rising output. However, even assuming high output growth, infant and child mortality rates would be substantially above the IDG target in 2015.

Some countries have lost ground over the 1990s. Kenya saw its infant mortality rate rise from 62 to 74, while Zimbabwe's went from 53 to 69.

  • Maternal mortality rates also show mixed results. The international goals call for reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015, but significant improvements have not been seen. In several developing countries, still more than 1000 women die for each 100,000 live births (Table 11).

 

Table 8. Trends in life expectancy, 1970-1997 (years of life)

Region

1970

1982

1993

1997

East Asia and Pacific

59

65

68

68

Europe and Central Asia

67

68

69

69

Latin America and Caribbean

61

66

69

70

Middle East and North Africa

53

60

66

67

South Asia

49

55

60

62

Sub-Saharan Africa

44

48

52

52

Developing Countries

55

61

65

65

OECD

71

74

77

78

Source: World Development Indicators.

 

Table 9. Declines in life expectancy since 1990 (years of life)

Botswana

-9.5

Zimbabwe

-3.8

Zambia

-6.0

Kazakhstan

-3.4

Kenya

-5.1

Iraq

-3.3

Uganda

-4.3

Cote d'Ivoire

-3.1

Source: World Development Indicators.


Table 10. Trends in infant mortality, 1970 to 1997 (per 1,000 live births)

Region

1970

1990

1992

1996

1997

Reduction 1990-1997

East Asia & Pacific

77

42

44

39

38

10%

Europe & Central Asia

46

28

28

24

25

9%

Latin America & Caribbean

83

42

38

33

32

24%

Middle East & North Africa

135

61

60

50

48

21%

South Asia

138

87

85

..

77

12%

Sub-Saharan Africa

132

100

97

91

90

10%

Developing countries

107

66

65

59

58

12%

OECD

22

8

7

6

6

25%

Data are shown only for some years due to availability. Source: World Development Indicators

Table 11. Countries with the highest maternal mortality rates between 1990 and  1993 (per 100,000 live births)

Country

Maternal Mortality Rate

Country

Maternal Mortality Rate

Sierra Leone

1,800

Eritrea

1,400

Afghanistan

1,700

Ethiopia

1,400

Somalia

1,600

Burundi 

1,300

Angola

1,500

Rwanda

1,300

Mozambique

1,500

The Gambia

1,000

Nepal

1,500

Nigeria

1,000

Source: World Bank economic and social database.

 

Malnutrition

A recent study using data from nationally representative surveys for 19 countries looks at how three indicators of malnutrition (wasting—low weight for height; stunting—low height for age; underweight—low weight for age) vary by income level. The study does find that malnutrition indicators are worse for the poor:

  • Wasting, stunting and underweight are higher amongst the poor in almost all countries.
  • The difference between the poor and the non-poor is less pronounced for wasting, which is the more short-term indicator.
  • Differences between poor and non-poor vary across countries: in Peru, the rates of underweight and stunting amongst the poorest 20 percent are nearly five times those amongst the richest 20 percent; in Egypt the gaps are far smaller.
  • Interestingly, poor-non-poor differences tend to be smaller in countries where average rates are highest (e.g. Bangladesh), and larger in countries where average rates are lowest (e.g. Peru).

 


Next: Health status and health care services for the poor