For the duration of this semester, I will be reporting on a prominent health issue in Ghana. At a glance, Ghana is a developing country with some shocking statistics in terms of education, women, disparities, and economics. Beginning with education, UNICEF presents some interesting and maybe even unexpected data. For example, the net attendance ratio of males in primary education (72.2%) is just slightly lower than the net attendance ratio of females in primary education (73.8%). This same pattern still holds true for the net attendance ratio in secondary school, with the percentage of males being 39.7% and females being 43.6%! Moving on to demographic indicators, we notice that life expectancy has increased since 1970, while on the other hand, crude death rate and crude birth rate have both dramatically decreased since 1970. However, the life expectancy is still relatively low (61 years) when compared to more developed countries. Some surprising economic indicators are also noted by UNICEF, in which the percentage of the population that lives under the international poverty line, less than $1.25 per day, is at a staggering 28.6%. Next, when looking at the multitude of statistics that UNICEF provides about women, the one that stands out the most is the the percentage of women aged 15-49 that use contraceptives. It is only 34.3%, which is extremely low. Finally, the disparities by residence (urban versus rural) and by household wealth (poorest versus richest) is interesting to note as well. For example, the prevalence of underweight children in rural areas (15.5%) is much higher than that of urban areas (10.5%). This same pattern of disparity among urban and rural populations can also be seen for the use of improved sanitation facilities, or the percentage of people who have diarrhea that are treated. This pattern can again be seen among the same issues when we compare the richest and poorest 20 percent of the population, or what we would refer to as disparity by household wealth.

Despite these alarming statistics, it is important to note that all hope is not lost. For instance, the under 5 mortality rate has dramatically decreased since 1970. In 1970, it was roughly 200/1,000 births, but in 2012 it was reported to be 72/1,000 births. In addition, the gross domestic product has grown as well from 1970 to 2012.