For the duration of this course, I will be research and learning about Sierra Leone. This small country in West Africa has been in the news a few times for some very interesting issues. The more I looked into Sierra Leone, the more I wanted to know and understand.
A majority of the 59,787,000 Sierra Leoneans live in rural communities. Only 39.6% of the population is urbanized; this could be an indicator of inaccessible health care for a lot of the country. On top of that, 51.7% of the population is below the international poverty line, meaning that a little over half of the population is earning less than $1.25 per day. Their annual inflation growth rate is a raging 18.8%. These statistics have been blowing my mind, especially comparing them to what the United State’s are. It’s showing me how truly privileged I am to just be born here.
Sierra Leone’s contraception prevalence is only 11% and only 50.1% of labor and deliveries are institutional delivery. The correlation of these percentages can lead me to infer there a lot of babies being born in unsafe, unsanitary environments. Sierra Leone leads the world with the highest maternal mortality rate. One in twenty-three women die during or because of childbirth. For a little bit of context, the United States’ maternal mortality rate is one in 2400 women.
Only about 70.5% of men ages 15 to 24 years old can read and write. Even more astonishing, only 52.1% of women ages 15 to 24 years old are literate. Secondary education rates come in at 39.9% of men and 33.2% of women.
In urban communities, 71.8% of labors have a skilled attendant present and only 58.9% of labors have a skilled attendant present in rural communities. Urban communities use of improved sanitation facilities is 22.5% and rural is 6.7%. Both are extremely low, but the difference between rural and urban is astonishing.
The differences between the richest 20% of households and poorest 20% of households is just as astonishing. The rich households have a skilled attendant present at labors 85% of the time, while the poorer households have a skilled attendant there 44% of the time. The primary school net attendance ratio is 58.5% for poor households and 87.9% for rich households.
The most interesting statistic, to me, about Sierra Leone is their under-5 mortality rank. In 1970, Sierra Leone was ranked 329th. By 1990 they moved up to 257th; 234th in 2000; 182nd in 2012. And Sierra is now ranked number one. Their fertility rate has decreased from 6.7 children per woman in 1970 to 4.8 children per woman in 2012.
Sierra Leone seems to have some very obvious health issues occurring and growing. The mystery behind these statistics drew me in. I want to continue to investigate the phenomena of Sierra Leone throughout the next seven weeks.