Saloni Dattani

Hong Kong, London

Founding Editor at Works in Progress

Writer and Researcher at Our World in Data

Thinking & writing about science. Researcher @OurWorldInData. Co-founder @WorksInProgMag. 🇭🇰🇮🇳🏳️‍🌈

Articles

The decline in cancer mortality is about much more than smoking

3 weeks ago | scientificdiscovery.dev | Saloni Dattani

I often write about and create data visualizations of long-term trends in health and mortality. One example is a chart showing the decline in US cancer death rates since the 1990s, which is shown below. It’s not an enormous decline, but it’s substantial. The age-standardized death rate from cancer has declined by around a third since 1990 in the US. This means that, on average, people of a given age in 2021 had a third lower risk of cancer death than people of the same age in 1990.
How effective and safe are measles vaccines?

3 weeks ago | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani

One dose of the MMR vaccine (the combined vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella) reduces the chance of getting measles by around 95%.3 This means the risk was twenty times lower in the vaccinated. This is shown in the top panel of the chart. After two doses of the vaccine, the risk was twenty-five times lower than in unvaccinated children.
We don't have to sit back and just watch the horror unfold

1 month ago | scientificdiscovery.dev | Saloni Dattani

This month, I signed a pledge to donate at least 10% of my lifetime income to effective charities. And this week, I decided to donate 19% of my annual income, with more than 80% to a charity working in Nigeria to complete a water and sanitation project. The project was being funded by USAID, but that funding was suddenly canceled by the Trump administration without notice. In recent months, US foreign aid programs have been slashed. It’s hard to wrap your head around the scale of these programs.
Links in Progress: Good drug news

1 month ago | worksinprogress.news | Saloni Dattani

We recently released Issue 18 of Works in Progress. Read about prehistoric psychopaths, fertility on demand and the king of fruits here. Today on Links in Progress Asimov Press’s Niko McCarty and our own Saloni Dattani return to review more important things happening in the world of biotechnology and medicine. 1. Nanopore sequencing is a promising, low-cost alternative to traditional genome sequencing methods. Nanopores are tiny holes in a membrane.
What share of births involve assisted reproductive technologies like IVF?

2 months ago | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani

In 1978, Louise Brown became the first baby born through in vitro fertilization (IVF). In this technique, eggs are fertilized with sperm in a lab before the resulting embryos are transferred to the uterus. Assisted reproductive technologies have advanced further and now become widely available.
The baby boom in seven charts

2 months ago | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani |Lucas Rodés-Guirao

The baby boom reshaped family life and drove population growth in many countries. In this article, we explore the key patterns in seven charts. The baby boom was a period that saw a surge in birth rates alongside a dramatic decline in death rates due to advances in medicine and public health. This combination led to rapid population growth in many high-income countries, which influenced their societies for generations.
The baby boom in eight charts

2 months ago | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani |Lucas Rodés-Guirao

The baby boom reshaped family life and drove population growth in many countries. In this article, we explore the key patterns in eight charts. The baby boom was a period that saw a surge in birth rates alongside a dramatic decline in death rates due to advances in medicine and public health. This combination led to rapid population growth in many high-income countries, which influenced their societies for generations.
Why the total fertility rate doesn’t necessarily tell us the number of births women eventually have

2 months ago | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani |Lucas Rodés-Guirao

The total fertility rate is commonly confused with the eventual number of births per woman. This can result in misinterpreting the impact of policies and trends over time. When people talk about trends in fertility, they often use a single metric: the total fertility rate (TFR). It seems straightforward — after all, it’s often described as the average number of children per woman. But while TFR is a widely used metric, it’s not as simple as it sounds.
Cardiovascular disease death rates have fallen rapidly in many countries

Jan 23, 2025 | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani

Moving between continents is less common than moving to another country within the same region. For most people, international migration means crossing a nearby border, rather than a very long distance or even an ocean. Consider Asia, the world's most populous continent. When an Asian emigrant leaves their home country, they can either move to another Asian country or head to one of the other five continents.
Childhood cancer deaths in the United States have declined six-fold over the last seventy years

Jan 9, 2025 | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani

Record national life expectancies have been climbing for over a century. In 1840, Swedish women had a life expectancy of 46 years — the highest of any country recorded that year. By 1921, Australia held the record at 63 years. For most of the 20th century, Iceland, Norway, Australia, and Sweden competed for the top position before being overtaken by Japan in 1984. Hong Kong and Japan have held the records since then. These countries didn’t merely catch up; they’ve continued to push the limits higher.