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Major Health Issues In Sub-Saharan Africa

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Major Health Issues In Sub-Saharan Africa
One of the major health issues in Sub-Saharan Africa is the infant mortality rate. An infant mortality rate is the rate at which children die before they reach the age of one. In the United States the infant mortality rate is 6.1 deaths per live 1,000 births (2017). This is even higher than Finland, who has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world at 2.3 deaths per 1,000 live births (2017). At 154.4 deaths per 1,00 live births, Sierra Leone is the highest in the world (2017). This number should be astronomically lower. Oddly enough, this high infant mortality rate leads to higher birth rates within those countries that suffer from higher rates (2017). If the problem of high infant mortality is not addressed not only could the population increase drastically due to high birth rates, but also could be indicative of plummeting …show more content…
High mortality rates of children tend to provoke high fertility rates among poor communities. In general, the high fertility more than compensates for the high mortality. In one numerical illustration, household whose children have a 75% survival rate choose to have six children, of whom an average of 4.5 survive. The households whose children have a 95% survival rate have two children, of whom an average of 1.9 survive. This pattern helps us to understand the surprising fact that countries with high infant mortality rates have the fastest growing populations in the world (2017).
The reasoning for such a pattern is not yet known, but it is why we such rapid population growth is seen in under developed and third world countries where the infant mortality rates are incredibly high. While high infant mortality rates are predominantly in Western and Sub-Saharan Africa, they run rampant in most third world and underdeveloped countries. The five countries with the highest infant mortality rates are (2017): o Sierra Leone with 154.4 deaths per live

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