GNV News 2025 May 11

World Health Organization (WHO) in 2025 May published a report in which it emphasized—backed by new data—that the main drivers of health inequities are social determinants outside the health sector, such as a lack of quality housing, education, and employment opportunities. It notes that health disparities are closely linked to social gradients and discrimination, and are particularly pronounced among people placed in positions where they are vulnerable to discrimination and exclusion.

These social determinants of health can similarly cause lifespans to be shortened by decades in both high- and low-income countries, and between the countries with the shortest and longest lifespans there is a 33-year gap in average life expectancy. The report finds that, compared with children from wealthy families, children from poor households are before age 5 more likely to die, with the risk being 13 times higher; it also analyzes that improving health equity could save 1.8 million children each year. In addition, from 2000 to 2023, the maternal mortality rate fell by 40 percent overall, but 94 percent still occurs in low- and middle-income countries. Racial and ethnic disparities also exist in high-income countries, with mortality rates particularly high among Indigenous peoples, minorities, and women in socially disadvantaged positions.

In the 2008 final report, a goal of reducing health inequities by 2040 was set, but the latest report shows that achieving it will be difficult.WHO emphasizes that addressing income inequality, structural discrimination, conflict, and climate change is key to overcoming health inequities, and urges countries to implement comprehensive social policies and remedy inequalities.

Learn more about the state of global health and media coverage → “The underreported realities of global health and medical issues”

Learn more about hidden global inequalities and media coverage → “Why don’t the media report on the rapidly increasing global inequality?”

Photo: A slum area in Mumbai, India (2005) (Sthitaprajna Jena / Wikimedia Commons [CC-BY-SA-2.0])