Emerging priorities for children’s health
- Congenital anomalies, injuries, and non-communicable diseases (chronic respiratory diseases, acquired heart diseases, childhood cancers, diabetes, and obesity) are the emerging priorities in the global child health agenda.
- Congenital anomalies affect an estimated 1 in 33 infants, resulting in 3.2 million children with disabilities related to birth defects every year.
- The global disease burden due to non-communicable diseases affecting children in childhood and later in life is rapidly increasing, even though many of the risk factors can be prevented.
- Similarly, the worldwide number of overweight children increased from an estimated 31 million in 2000 to 42 million in 2015, including in countries with a high prevalence of childhood undernutrition.
Global response: Sustainable Development Goal 3
- The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015 were developed to promote healthy lives and well-being for all children.
- The SDG Goal 3 is to end preventable deaths of newborns and under-5 children by 2030. There are two targets:
a. Reduce newborn mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1 000 live births in every country (SDG 3.2); and
b. Reduce under-five mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births in every country (SDG 3.2).
Source: WHO
