Seeing the movie Che at Real Art Ways recently brought back to my attention the issue of world statistics.  While that doesn’t sound particularly exciting, the state of Cuba at the time laid the groundwork for what became a popular uprising against the US-backed Batista regime.  Che, played by Benecio Del Toro, talks about the conditions which helped make the Cuban revolution possible in 1959 – among them were infant mortality and literacy rates.  When I was in college, I remember being shocked when I read the State of the World Atlas – a visual, statistical guide to these types of data across the globe.   The United States is far from the best in many of these categories.  This is something the powers that be ought to come to terms with, especially as they play Robin Hood in reverse. 

This site provides a great interactive graphic where you can chart the infant mortality rates of many countries throughout the world.   These data are corroborated by the CIA Factbook’s latest statistics.   At 6.26 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, the US ranks far from the best and is trumped by some countries that might be surprising.  Of course much of western and northern Europe supersede the US, with the Scandinavian countries among the best in the world.  Asian countries such as Japan and Hong Kong are in the top five, while South Korea is a full two points better than the US.  Even poorer European countries like Slovenia and Greece have better infant mortality rates than the US.  And what about Che’s Cuba fifty years after the revolution?  Despite more than forty years of embargo, Cuba’s infant mortality rate is 5.82.    Topping this list are Singapore and Bermuda.  Other countries that outperform the US most Americans would have difficulty locating on a map.

The CIA Factbook also documents literacy rates internationally.  The US claims 99% literacy (ability to read and write for both males and females) for its total population.  By contrast, Cuba has a 99.8% literacy rate.  The difference may seem negligible, especially compared to countries where literacy is half of this, but think of it this way: in the US 1% of the population is illiterate.  In Cuba, only .2% of the population is illiterate.   With just over 300 million people in this country, that means over 3 million people cannot read or write.  Of Cuba’s 11.5 million people, approximately 230,000 cannot read or write.

The US also ranks 50th in life expectancy behind many of the aforementioned European and Asian countries.

Image credit: Many Eyes – http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/trends-in-infant-mortality-by-countr