The so-called overpopulation "problem" is actually a medical success story. We are living longer lives while fewer people - especially children - are dying from preventable causes.
In 1950, global average life expectancy at birth was only 46. By 2015, it had shot up to over 71.
There needs to be even further improvements.
In 1950, global average life expectancy at birth was only 46. By 2015, it had shot up to over 71.
The decline in global child deaths is one of the greatest success stories of modern healthcare. The number of children dying each year has more than halved in recent decades, as we have got better at fighting contagious and infectious diseases. Children are particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases. As recently as the 19th Century, every third child in the world died before the age of five. Child mortality rates have fallen significantly since then thanks to vaccines and improvements in hygiene, nutrition, healthcare and clean water access. Child deaths in rich countries are now relatively rare, while the poorest regions today have child mortality rates similar to the UK and Sweden in the first half of the 20th Century, and are continuing to catch up.
There needs to be even further improvements.
Neonatal disorders - the death of a baby within the first 28 days - claimed 1.8 million newborns in 2017. The frequency of these deaths varies greatly from country to country. In Japan, fewer than one in 1,000 babies die in the first 28 days of life, compared with just under one in 20 in some of the world's poorest countries.
In 1990, one in three deaths resulted from communicable and infectious diseases; by 2017 this had fallen to one in five.
About 1.6 million died from diseases related to diarrhoea in 2017, putting it in the top 10 causes of death. In some countries, it's one of the largest killers.
The biggest single killer is cardiovascular disease, which affects the heart and arteries and is responsible for every third death. This is twice the rate of cancers - the second leading cause - which account for about one in six of all deaths.
Road accidents incur a high death toll in the richest and poorest countries alike, claiming 1.2 million lives in 2017.
Almost twice as many people around the world died from suicide as from homicide - the killing of one person by another. In the UK, suicide deaths were 16 times higher; it is the leading cause of death for men aged 20-40.
Deaths from terrorism, war and natural disasters - make up less than 0.5% of all deaths combined.
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