Tag Archives: global health statistics

Sex and gender in reporting health indicators

Posted on August 19, 2017 by colinmathers

I am writing a chapter for a US publication, which has tables of statistics for males and females (which I refer to as “sex”).  The editor contacted me to ask whether I should be calling this “gender”.  This reminded me … Continue reading →

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Global health is improving, so is global health information

Posted on May 18, 2017 by colinmathers

Yesterday we released World Health Statistics 2017: Monitoring health for the SDGs. This WHO flagship publication compiles data from the organization’s 194 Member States on 21 health-related SDG targets, providing a snapshot of both gains and threats to the health … Continue reading →

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University of Sydney Award for contributions to global health

Posted on May 16, 2017 by colinmathers

On 27 April, I was awarded the University of Sydney’s President’s Award for my contributions to global health monitoring. I did an Honours Degree in Science majoring in Physics and followed that with a PhD (1979) in theoretical physics. However … Continue reading →

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More than 1 billion people globally are living with high blood pressure

Posted on November 18, 2016 by colinmathers

This finding come from a new study published last Tuesday in The Lancet, which found that the number of people affected by high blood pressure has almost doubled over the past 40 years: lancet.com/high_blood_pressre The study highlighted a stark contrast … Continue reading →

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Progress in reducing child deaths: updated estimates of causes and trends

Posted on November 15, 2016 by colinmathers

Despite remarkable progress in the improvement of child survival between 1990 and 2015, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 target of a two-thirds reduction of under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) was not achieved globally. A paper published last week examined updated … Continue reading →

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Major improvements in global life expectancy, Africa is starting to catch up

Posted on May 19, 2016 by colinmathers

Today we released World Health Statistics 2016, our annual publication summarizing information on the health of the world’s people . Global average life expectancy increased by 5 years between 2000 and 2015, the fastest increase since the 1960s. Those gains … Continue reading →

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Did the world achieve the Millenium Development Goals for health?

Posted on May 10, 2016 by colinmathers

In 2015 the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) come to the end of their term, and a post-2015 agenda, comprising 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), takes their place. My Department published a report in December 2015 assessing the achievement of the … Continue reading →

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Maternal mortality has been almost halved in the last 25 years.

Posted on November 16, 2015 by colinmathers

Last week, we released the latest global estimates of maternal mortality from the UN Interagency Group led by WHO (also includes UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank and UN Population Division) http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/news These also represent our final assessment of country, regional and … Continue reading →

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Child deaths in 2015: much accomplished, but more to do

Posted on September 9, 2015 by colinmathers

In 2000, world leaders agreed on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). MDG 4 called for a two-thirds reduction in the under-5 mortality rate between 1990 and 2015. Today the UN Interagency Group on Child Mortality Estimation (UN-IGME), which my team … Continue reading →

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Does the Global Burden of Disease study substantially overestimate road traffic deaths in OECD countries?

Posted on August 30, 2015 by colinmathers

Another area of big difference between the IHME Global Burden of Disease Study and WHO global statistics relates to road injury deaths in developed countries. Dan Hogan and I have just published a comment comparing our statistics with the GBD … Continue reading →

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