Poverty and Poor Health

Here is a map that’s typical of the world maps we’ve seen before. The size of each country shows that country’s actual land area.

The funny looking map below shows things in a different way. The size of each country shows its portion of the world’s absolute poorest people: nearly a billion of the poorest now struggle to exist on less than $1 a day, and over 90% of them exist in Asia and Africa.
 

Proportion of World Population Existing on Less than $1 a Day

© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).  
Source: Worldmapper.org.

The next map is similar to the one above. Called the Human Development Index, it shows non-financial measures of people’s existence: things like life expectancy, underweight children, adult literacy, and water quality.

Proportion of World Population Low on the Human Development Index

© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).
Source: Worldmapper.org
 

Since the world’s poorest have very little health care, the vast majority of often preventable deaths occurs among these people. Deaths from nutritional deficiency, maternal and infant mortality, and infectious diseases are shown on this map. These often preventable deaths are almost a third of all deaths worldwide.

Often Preventable Deaths

Source: Worldmapper.org.- 2002 World Health Organization data