One of the happier trends these days is the general improvement in human life expectancy, even in nations that are suffering through armed conflict, natural disasters, or other great misfortunes. Believe it or not, for example, the average life expectancy in Afghanistan has actually increased steadily in recent years, as has the hallowed figure in […]
Tags:infant mortality·life expectancy·Marshall Islands·Micronesia·Pacific Ocean·Taiwan
As we’ve given ever-deeper thought to our nation’s distressingly high infant morality rate, we’ve started to wonder how best to address the problem. Everything we’ve read in recent days seems to indicate that the rate could be dramatically lowered if more expectant mothers took better care of their bodies—specifically by quitting smoking, which pretty clearly […]
Tags:cigarettes·infant mortality·medicine·Nicorette·philosophy·public health
No matter where you stand on the whole health-care debate, it’s tough to argue with the fact that our revamped system needs to address our appallingly high rate of infant mortality. Though the American economy is the largest in the OECD, our babies perish more frequently than the organization’s average. In fact, our national infant […]
Tags:cigarettes·infant mortality·Lithuania·OECD·public health·Slovakia
We normally assume that public health constantly improves, if only incrementally for long stretches. But then along comes a story like this, detailing how Delhi’s infant mortality rate has doubled since 2005. The obvious culprit is the continuing influx of rural migrants, few of whom seek professional medical care while pregnant—or, for that matter, for […]
Tags:Delhi·India·infant mortality·Janani Suraksha Yojana·public health
Since folk-medicine techniques ostensibly develop over many centuries, one would think its practitioners would slowly come to realize that some practices are actually harmful rather than helpful. But, alas, it turns out our species isn’t always aces at connecting cause to effect. And so we keep using treatments that are several degrees worse than doing […]
Tags:Indonesia·infant mortality·medical science·medicine·Timor-Leste·trepanation
