Understanding a statistic – 21,000 children died today

September 24, 2011 – 21,000 children die every day around the world. That is equivalent to:

• 1 child dying every 4 seconds
• 14 children dying every minute
• A 2011 Libya conflict-scale death toll every day
• A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring every 10 days
• A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring every 11 days
• An Iraq-scale death toll every 19–46 days
• Just under 7.6 million children dying every year
• Some 92 million children dying between 2000 and 2010

The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. Despite the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.

Food for thought…

• Each of those deaths is more than a statistic.
• Is it “easier” to pay attention to deaths tied to a specific event than something that happens everyday?