SDG 3 - Good health and well being

Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages is essential to sustainable development.

Significant strides have been made in increasing life expectancy and reducing some of the common killers associated with child and maternal mortality, but working towards achieving the target of less than 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030 would require improvements in skilled delivery care.

Achieving the target of reducing premature deaths due to incommunicable diseases by 1/3 by the year 2030 would also require more efficient technologies for clean fuel use during cooking and education on the risks of tobacco.

Many more efforts are needed to fully eradicate a wide range of diseases and address many different persistent and emerging health issues. By focusing on providing more efficient funding of health systems, improved sanitation and hygiene, increased access to physicians and more tips on ways to reduce ambient pollution, significant progress can be made in helping to save the lives of millions.

Facts and Figures

Child health

• 17,000 fewer children die each day than in 1990, but more than five million children still die before their fifth birthday each year.
• Since 2000, measles vaccines have averted nearly 15.6 million deaths.
• Despite determined global progress, an increasing proportion of child deaths are in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. Four out of every five deaths of children under age five occur in these regions.
• Children born into poverty are almost twice as likely to die before the age of five as those from wealthier families.
• Children of educated mothers—even mothers with only primary schooling—are more likely to survive than children of mothers with no education.

Maternal health

• Maternal mortality has fallen by 37% since 2000.
• In Eastern Asia, Northern Africa and Southern Asia, maternal mortality has declined by around two-thirds.
• But maternal mortality ratio – the proportion of mothers that do not survive childbirth compared to those who do –   in developing regions is still 14 times higher than in the developed regions.
• More women are receiving antenatal care. In developing regions, antenatal care increased from 65 per cent in 1990 to 83 per cent in 2012.
• Only half of women in developing regions receive the recommended amount of health care they need.
• Fewer teens are having children in most developing regions, but progress has slowed. The large increase in contraceptive use in the 1990s was not matched in the 2000s.
• The need for family planning is slowly being met for more women, but demand is increasing at a rapid pace.

HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

• 36.9 million people globally were living with HIV in 2017.
• 21.7 million million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy in 2017.
• 1.8 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2017.
• 940 000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2017.
• 77.3 million people have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic.
• 35.4 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic.
• Tuberculosis remains the leading cause of death among people living with HIV, accounting for around one in three AIDS-related deaths.
• Globally, adolescent girls and young women face gender-based inequalities, exclusion, discrimination and violence, which put them at increased risk of acquiring HIV.
• HIV is the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age worldwide.
• AIDS is now the leading cause of death among adolescents (aged 10–19) in Africa and the second most common cause of death among adolescents globally.
• Over 6.2 million malaria deaths have been averted between 2000 and 2015, primarily of children under five years of age in sub-Saharan Africa. The global malaria incidence rate has fallen by an estimated 37 per cent and the mortality rates by 58 per cent.

Space-based Technologies for SDG 3

Health challenges often transcend national borders and traditional approaches. In developing countries, infectious diseases remain among the top causes of death. Space technology can be used to monitor disease patterns, understand environmental triggers for the spread of diseases and predict risk areas. UNOOSA strengthens the capacity of all countries to use space technology for better health services and public health decision-making. Read more here.