Nice anti-Chicken Little story from the New York Times

[SlackerInc]

Almost Everywhere, Fewer Children Are Dying (Published 2019)

From 2000 to 2017, all but one of the 97 low-to-middle-income countries that account for the vast majority of deaths of young children lowered their child mortality rates, according to a report released Tuesday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with a research team at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, led by Stephen Lim, the institute’s senior director of science and engineering.[…]

By combining detailed survey data with statistical models, the researchers were able to map child mortality in much greater geographic detail than previous estimates. The exception to the trend of improvement was Syria, which has endured a devastating civil war.

Experts say reduced childhood mortality is also a marker of healthier, more stable conditions for adults. Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University and director of the World Health Organization’s center on global health law, described it as a health version of “the canary in the coal mine.”

Mothers who lose fewer young children tend to have fewer children, reducing their own risk of death in childbirth and increasing their ability to improve the economic prospects of their households, said Ashish Jha, a physician with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “It has huge implications for the family,” he said.

I expect Steven Pinker is pretty happy to hear this from his Harvard colleagues.