historyOur World in Data1950–present
Child deaths before age five have fallen in every world region since 1950
In 1950, nearly one in four children worldwide died before their fifth birthday, and in Africa about one in three did. Since then the child mortality rate has fallen in every world region. Africa and Oceania saw it drop about fivefold, Asia about tenfold, and Europe about 27-fold. Progress was uneven: a sharp spike in Asia around 1960 came from the Great Leap Forward famine in Mao's China, the deadliest famine on record. The global average has now fallen to 3.5 percent, which still means millions of children die each year, so the work is far from finished.
Child survival is one of the clearest measures of human progress, and the data shows that gains are possible even in the poorest regions. The remaining gap between regions shows where health, nutrition and sanitation still matter most. Understanding the long trend helps separate real improvement from short-term setbacks.
background
Child mortality is the death of children under the age of five. The child mortality rate (also under-five mortality rate) refers to the probability of dying between birth and exactly five years of age expressed per 1,000 live births.
Child mortality is a medical and biological issue as well as a social problem defined by claimsmakers who advocate for better healthcare access and protective policies. By examining the outcomes of past interventions and current disparities, we can evaluate the success of social work in reducing infant deaths.
It encompasses neonatal mortality and infant mortality (the probability of death in the first year of life).
From Wikipedia: Child mortality (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
