ScAm

70 Scientific American, April 2020

SOURCE: “MAPPING 123 MILLION NEONATAL, INFANT AND CHILD DEATHS BETWEEN

2000 AND 2017,” BY ROY BURSTEIN ET AL., IN

NATURE,

VOL. 574; OCTOBER 17, 2019

GRAPHIC SCIENCE
Text and graphs by Amanda Montañez | Maps by Mapping Specialists

0 50 100 150 200

VIETNAM

CAMBODIA

SENEGAL

LAOS

Lai Chau

Ho Chi Minh

THAILAND

CHINA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

Stung Treng

Phnom

Penh

THAILAND

CAMBODIA

LAOS

VIETNAM

Diourbel

MAURITANIA

SENEGAL

MALI

GUINEA

GUINEA-

BISSAU

GAMBIA

50

0

100

150

200

50

0

0

100

150

200

50

100

150

200

2000 2005 2010 2015

2000 2005 2010 2015

2000 2005 2010 2015

Diourbel

Under 5 (solid lines)

Infants (dashed lines)

Phnom Penh

Stung Treng

Lai Chau

Each line represents

a province or state

Under-5 Mortality Rate Ho Chi Minh

(deaths per 1,000 live births)

Under-5 Mortality Rate

(deaths per 1,000 live births)

Mortality Rate

(deaths per 1,000 live births)

INFANTS STILL AT RISK

CLOSING THE GAP

INEQUALITY WITHIN A NATION

Child Mortality in 99 Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Under-5 Mortality Rate (deaths per 1,000 live births)

KEY

Vietnam’s U5MR is relatively low. But at the subnational level, inequality among regions has prevented

the gap between the highest and lowest rates from closing substantially. From 2000 to 2017 the U5MR

in the province of Lai Chau remained about four times higher than that of Ho Chi Minh.

The U5MR in Cambodia is higher than that of neighboring Vietnam, but within Cambodia the

regional variation has been significantly reduced. The gap between the highest and lowest U5MR

in the country shrank nearly threefold between 2000 and 2017.

Maps show 2017 estimates of U5MR.
Line graphs show annual estimates from 2000 to 2017.

Although the mortality rate of infants (younger than one) has fallen, it has done so more slowly than that

of children aged one to five, making it a larger percentage of the U5MR. This is notable in Diourbel, Senegal,

where the ratio of infant deaths to under-5 deaths rose from 54 percent in 2000 to 73 percent in 2017.

Survival

of the

Youngest

Deaths of young children

are decreasing, yet

progress varies significantly

within countries

Actions taken in response to goals set by the
United Nations have reduced the deaths of
children younger than five from 93 per 1,000
live births in 1990 to 39 in 2018. Low- and
middle-income countries, which generally
have higher under-5 mortality rates (U5MR)
than their richer counterparts, have achieved
some of the largest decreases. A recent paper
in Nature suggests there is more to the story,
however. Researchers who studied local U5MR
rates in districts, counties, states and prov-
inces within 99 low- and middle-income na-
tions from 2000 to 2017 found great variabil-
ity within many countries—especially those
with particularly high or low rates over all. In
some cases, though, subnational gaps have
narrowed substantially. One important in-
sight: in some countries, the ratio of infant
(younger than one) deaths to under-5 deaths
has risen, suggesting that preventing fatal-
ities among the youngest children may be
tougher to attain.

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