Decrease in Child Mortality Under-5 mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) 1990
Health care has also remained a key challenge in sub-Saharan Africa. Roughly eight-in-ten (median of 82%) across the nine countries surveyed say poor-quality health care is a very big problem in their nation. On this issue, sub-Saharan Africa lags far behind other areas of the world on key indicators such as the mortality rates for children under 5 and for mothers.
Between 1990 and 2015, sub-Saharan Africa decreased the number of deaths among children under 5 by 52%. Even so, the region continues to have the highest under-5 mortality rate, with 86 deaths per 1,000 live births. And while maternal deaths dropped by 49% since 1990, sub-Saharan Africa still has a maternal mortality rate more than twice that of any other region (510 per 100,000 live births in sub-Saharan Africa compared with 190 in Southern Asia, the next-highest).
Decrease in Child Mortality  | Under-5 mortality rate (deaths per 1,000  | live births)  | PERCENT  | 1990  | 2015  | CHANGE  | 53  | Eastern Asia  | -78%  | 11  | 54  | Latin a merica/Caribbean  | 69  | 73  | Northern Africa  | -67  | 24  | 65  | Western Africa  | -65  | 23  | 71  | South EEstern Asia  | 62  | 27  | 126  | Southern Asia  | 60  | 50  | 73  | Caucasus/ CentralAsia  | -55  | 33  | 179  | Sub-Saharan Africa  | 52  | 86  | 74  | Oceania  | -31  | 51  | 100  | All Developing Regions  | -53  | 47  | Note: Perce ntage change ca Iculations are based on  | unrounded numbers 2015 figures are ba sed on projections  | Source: United Nation's Millennium Development Goals  | Report 2015.  | PEW RESEARCH CENTER 