Understanding a statistic - 21,000 children died today

John Freund, CM
October 1, 2011

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?

 

 


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