{"id":553,"date":"2009-01-05T16:55:50","date_gmt":"2009-01-05T15:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=553"},"modified":"2014-07-29T10:18:09","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T09:18:09","slug":"liz-wagers-vital-statistics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2009\/01\/05\/liz-wagers-vital-statistics\/","title":{"rendered":"Liz Wager’s vital statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LizOne of my best presents this Christmas was a slim book called the Pocket World in Figures,<\/em> published by The Economist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what it says about my personality, but I love perusing these lists.<\/p>\n

Here are a few choice, health-related facts:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. In the UK there are 76 computers per 100 people \u2013 in Nigeria there are 0.8<\/li>\n
  2. Male life expectancy in Swaziland is 39.8 years<\/li>\n
  3. Malawi has the third highest health spending as a percentage of GDP (after the US and Timor-Leste) \u2026 at 12.2%\u00a0 \u2026 this sounds great until you find that Malawi\u2019s GDP is just US$240 per head (while the UK\u2019s is $39,750)<\/li>\n
  4. Malawi also has the lowest number of doctors in the world (just 1 per 49,624 people compared with about 1 per 500 in the UK and 1 per 200 in Greece)<\/li>\n
  5. 12 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China<\/li>\n
  6. In 6 countries, less than 40% of the urban population have access to sanitation \u2013 all are in Africa
    \nJapan has 14.3 hospital beds per 1000 people \u2013 in the UK we have 3.9, in Kenya there are 1.9<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I could go on. Almost everything has something to do with health. Even if you\u2019re sick of lists of the Top this, that or whatever, I recommend this book \u2013 and hope, rather optimistically, for greater equality in 2009.<\/p>\n

    Liz Wager<\/strong> is a freelance writer, trainer and publications consultant who works for a number of pharmaceutical companies, communication agencies, publishers and academic institutions. She is also the Secretary of COPE (the Committee On Publication Ethics) and a member of the BMJ\u2019s Ethics Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    One of my best presents this Christmas was a slim book called the Pocket World in Figures, published by The Economist. […]<\/p>\n

    More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1404],"tags":[581,785,786,783,784],"class_list":["post-553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liz-wager","tag-africa","tag-chinea","tag-japan","tag-malawi","tag-statistics"],"yoast_head":"\nLiz Wager's vital statistics - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2009\/01\/05\/liz-wagers-vital-statistics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Liz Wager's vital statistics - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of my best presents this Christmas was a slim book called the Pocket World in Figures, published by The Economist. 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