GLOBAL HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PAPER 1

Global Health and Human Development Paper

By

Kanale Rodrigues

California University State San Bernardino

HSCI 610

11/15/2016
 In the United States today, we are a melting pot of different cultures, races, and ethnic

groups living together striving for quality health outcomes for themselves and their families.

Parents want to develop their child into a healthy thriving adult. However, not everyone has the

opportunity to live a healthy lifestyle based a families social status, lack of a steady income,

limited access to healthy foods and places such as parks to increase physical activities, and

access to a good health care plan. Which could ultimately lead to a poor quality of life as well as

even a short lifespan. Other nations as well try to increase the overall health and wellness of their

citizens, everyone has a chance to thrive. Compared to the Untied States some nations do not

have advances in health care, equality among genders, and a limited government budget that

would allow families to live and thrive. In this paper, I will discuss the comparison of the United

States stats to other nations stats in following areas: Human Development Index (HDI), life

expectancy, maternal and infant morality rats, healthcare in terms of per capita, and the

connection between health spending to healthy outcomes among citizens. Finally, discuss that

there is a reason why counties that have spend less money on health care and can have close to

the same death rates compared to a nation that spends a lot more.

First, the human development index (HDI) will be discussed and how the United States

ranking, compares to other Nations. The human development index is the combination of the

countrys overall average life expectancy, education level of the population, and annual income

per capita of the population (United Nation Development Programme, n.d.). The United States is

ranked overall eighth out of 194 countries that are part of the HDI. The United States life

expectancy average is around 79.1 years old, annual income per capita being around 52,000

dollars, and over 16 years average of educational learning among the population, in which over

95 percent of the population has a college degree (United Nation Development Programme,
 GLOBAL HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PAPER 3

n.d.). Also, among the Americas Canada, Chile, and Argentina rank among the top 50 counties

in terms of the HDI (United Nation Development Programme, n.d.). The European nations have

the majority of the highest rankings according to the HDI with the countries being Norway,

Germany, and Switzerland. Norway according to the HDI is ranked number one out of all the

194 countries. Norways life expectancy is around 81.6 years of age, annual income per capita is

around 63,000 dollars, and years of education is around 17.5 years among the population with 97

percent receiving a secondary source of education (United Nation Development Programme,

n.d.). The African Nations in the middle of the continent are the lowest ranking according to the

HDI. Using the Nation of Sudan as an example ranked 167 according to the HDI has a average

life expectancy of 63.7 years old among the population, educational years of schooling averaging

around 7 years, and annual income of 3,808 dollars on average (United Nation Development
 Gross income Per Capita ($)
80
78
76
74
72
70
68
66
64
United States Russian China
Programme, n.d.).

Among all of the Nations discussed above differences in terms of the HDI ranking system would

have to be overall population. The United States greatly outnumbers all of the European Nations

in terms of population being 322 million citizens on average to about 95 million citizens

combined among the toped ranked European Countries discussed above and the biggest

difference between the African Nations has to be income and educational level (United Nation

Development Programme, n.d.). Next, the life expectancy will be discussed since the HDI

ranking has much to do with a countries population being able to thrive.

Life expectancy is how long someone would live on average in a given population; in our

case we are comparing the United States stats to the other nations of the world. United States

would be compared to the life expectancy of the Nations that have that have high population as

well. Discussed above with the life expectancy of the smaller in size populations nations such as

Norway and Sudan would not give a good comparison to the United States due to the fact that

one nation is much smaller and can focus their annual income budget on the populations need

more efficiently. As for Sudan the Nation is on the poor end of the HDI and would not make a

good comparison to the population size of the Untied States (United Nation Development
 GLOBAL HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PAPER 5

Programme, n.d.) The United States comparison to the life expectancy rate to China, Russia,

India, and Brazil would be better due to the population size similarity. Russia has a life

expectancy of the population around 70.9 years of age and overall population of 142 million

(World Health Organization, n.d). China has a life expectancy of 75.8 years of age and overall

population of 1,393.8 million (World Health Organization, n.d). Brazil has an overall population

202 million and life expectancy of the population 74.5 years of age. And India has an overall

population of 1,267.4 million and life expectancy of 68 years of age (World Health Organization,

n.d). United States compared to the Nations discussed above has a higher annual income per

capita then of them combined. The question is how are the Nations able to have close to the same

life expectancy has the United States beside including India when the annual income is much

lower then the United States (United Nation Development Programme, n.d.).
Life expectancy (% of population)
India

Brazil

China

Russian

United States

62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80

Population of Nations per million persons

10,000

8,000

6,000

4,000

2,000

0
United States Norway Australia
 GLOBAL HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PAPER 7

Life expectancy of a Nation is a good lead up to taking about the infant and materially

morality rates, which can tell if a Nation is thriving in health if its low. In this section United

States morality and infant will be compared to countries that have a very high mortality rate in

both categories. In the United States there is 14 deaths per 100,000 live births and as for infant

death has decreased to around 10 per 1,000 live births (World Health Organization, n.d). As

discussed above the African Nations have a high ranking according to the HDI for certain

reasons and tend to have high death rates in both infant and materially rates. As examples

Nigeria and Chad will be used as for Chad 856 deaths per 100,000 live births and Nigeria have

814 deaths per 100,000 live births. Also, African Nations has a whole tend have around 65,000

deaths per 1,000 live birth, which is a giant decrease from 1990 until today to almost 135,000

live birth deaths per 1,000 live births (World Health Organization, n.d). Most deaths of infants

and mothers are caused by infections and diseases, which could be handled easily if medical

advances were in the developmental Nations of African as it is in places like the United States.

Nations ability to has spent and how much they spend on healthcare per capita can make

a difference in the morality rate and life expectancy of a nation. Adding, the amount spent per

capital could increase overall health outcomes and decrease the prevalence of diseases. In this

section, the United States will be compared to Nations that are at the highest ranking according

to the HDI and lowest rating according to the HDI to see how much money a nation believes in t

spending for health care. The United States spends around 9,000 dollars per person on health

care, which is around 17 percent of the annual income spent on health care services every year.

However if that is the case then how is it that in Nations like Australia and Norway spend less

money per capita on health care and have a lower percentage taken out of the annual income of

the population per capita. Adding, have slightly higher ratios of deaths compared to that of the
United States being in both live births and life expectancy (World Health Organization, n.d). As

for counties that are lower ranked on the HDI tend to spend less on health care because the

budget is not as great as that of the Nations that have more of an annual budget to work with.

Healthcare money spent per capita ($)

10,000
9,000
8,000
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
United States Norway Australia

In conclusion, United States in comparison to the other 194 Nations has to the ability to

take care of its citizens more effective then Nations that dont have the resources to do so. I did

learn even when comparing money difference among genders of difference nations men still get

paid more then women even in developing countries (World Health Organization, n.d). Also, I

believe that it does depend on the health care system not so much money that is spent on health

care, but how effective the money is used to promote health care. Finally, that over time even

developing counties can increase life spans through medical advances through out the year and

decrease the deaths of common illness because of a lack of health care system or advances in

one.
 GLOBAL HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PAPER 9

References

HumanDevelopmentReports.(n.d.).RetrievedNovember14,2016,fromhttp://hdr.undp.org/en

WorldHealthOrganization.(n.d.).RetrievedNovember14,2016,fromhttp://www.who.int/en/