In 2000, the United Nations issued its Millennium Development Goals to reduce child and maternal mortality rates by two thirds worldwide by 2015. A new study by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington finds that significant progress has been made but that most countries will fail to meet the target. The results appear in two articles published in the journal The Lancet. The study on child mortality rates may be downloaded by clicking here. The maternal mortality study can be downloaded by clicking here.
The report notes that since 1990 child deaths fell globally by 48 percent. Maternal deaths from pregnancy-related causes dropped by nearly 25 percent. Yet, in 2013, 6.3 million children under the age of 5 died. Nearly 300,000 women died in 2013 from pregnancy-related causes.
The study found that 45 countries – including 27 in the developing world – are on target to reduce child death rates by two thirds. The highest child death rate was in the African nation of Guinea-Bissau. Singapore had the lowest rate.
Only 16 countries – most of which are in Europe – are on target to reduce maternal death rates by two thirds. The United States is just one of eight countries in the world that has seen an increase in maternal death rates since 2003. The country with the highest maternal death rate was South Sudan. The lowest maternal mortality rate is in Iceland.