Development Contrasts: Health Outcomes

Some of the starkest differences in development outcomes are seen when we look at health outcomes. In this video we focus on child malnutrition and healthy life expectancy at birth.

Healthy life expectancy at birth:

Average number of years that a person can expect to live in full health by considering years lived in less than full health because of disease and injury.

Child malnutrition:

Percentage of children under age 5 who are more than two standard deviations below the median height-for-age of the reference population.

Stunting affected an estimated 21.9 per cent or 149 million children under 5 years of age globally in 2018.

World Bank Research Paper, Galasso & Wagstaff (2018)

“We estimate that, on average, the per capita income penalty from stunting is around 7%, i.e. per capita income in the developing world would have been 7% higher if nobody currently working had been stunted in childhood. Africa and South Asia incur larger penalties: around 9-10% of GDP per capita."