WHO published its World health statistics report 2025, revealing the deeper health impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on loss of lives, longevity and overall health and well-being. In just two years, between 2019 and 2021, global life expectancy fell by 1.8 years—the largest drop in recent history— reversing a decade of health gains.

The report presents a mixed picture. Over the past 25 years, there have been notable improvements in child well-being in the group of countries examined in this report: steady decline in child mortality, overall reduction in adolescent suicide and increase in school completion rates.

Birth Rate is a crude measure of fertility of a population and is a crucial determinant of population growth. It gives the number of live births per thousand population in a given region and year. The Birth Rate at all India level has declined drastically over the last five decades from 36.9 in 1971 to 19.3 in 2021.

The 20th Tanzania Economic Update (TEU) shows that accelerating a fertility decline has the potential to enable the country to reap the benefits of a demographic dividend, which refers to how improved health and reduced fertility can drive economic growth.

The number of children who died before their fifth birthday has reached a historic low, dropping to 4.9 million in 2022, according to this latest estimates released by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME).

An estimated 13.4 million babies were born pre-term in 2020, with nearly 1 million dying from preterm complications, according to this new report by United Nations agencies and partners.

Global progress in reducing deaths of pregnant women, mothers and babies has flatlined for eight years due to decreasing investments in maternal and newborn health, according to this new report from the United Nations (UN).

The overall maternal mortality rate dropped by 34.3 per cent over a 20-year period -- from 339 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 223 maternal deaths in 2020, according to this report by the World Health Organization and other UN agencies.

In 2021, an estimated 1.9 million babies were stillborn at 28 weeks of pregnancy or later, with a global stillbirth rate of 13.9 stillbirths per 1,000 total births. These losses, however, are not experienced uniformly.

An estimated 5 million children died before their fifth birthday and another 2.1 million children and youth aged between 5–24 years lost their lives in 2021, according to this latest estimates by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME).