Our World in Data

5 days ago | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani

Measles causes more than an acute illness: it suppresses immune memory and increases the risk of complications for years. In 1962, the author Roald Dahl wrote a public letter describing his daughter’s measles infection, the year before vaccination became available. Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it.

1 week ago | ourworldindata.org | Hannah Ritchie

Losing a child is one of the worst things that can happen to a parent. Imagine living in a world where there was a one-in-three chance your child would die. This wasn't just the reality for your children; it could just as well happen to your siblings, friends, or neighbors. Such a world seems unimaginable today, but it wasn’t too far from reality two centuries ago, even in some economically advanced countries.

1 week ago | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani

Until the 1960s, many children affected by leukemia would quickly die from it. Now, most children in rich countries are cured. In the past, when I’d hear the words childhood leukemia, I’d often picture a young child who suddenly becomes seriously ill, and whose parents are told their child has only a few years to live.

2 weeks ago | ourworldindata.org | Saloni Dattani

You might be surprised to learn that a common stomach infection can lead to cancer. That infection is caused by Helicobacter pylori — H. pylori for short — a bacterium that can live in the stomach lining for decades. The infection often begins in childhood and may not cause symptoms right away. But over time, it can damage the stomach’s protective lining, causing inflammation and ulcers. In some people, it eventually leads to cancer. The map shows that in parts of Asia and South America, H.

2 weeks ago | ourworldindata.org | Hannah Ritchie |Fiona Spooner

As much as one-quarter of deaths in Europe and the United States were once from tuberculosis. People often romanticize what’s rare and look down on what’s common. This was not the case for tuberculosis. It was everywhere, but still carried a strange sense of allure. By the middle of the 18th century, around 1% of London's population was dying from tuberculosis (TB) every year. You can see this in the chart below, which shows modeled estimates of TB death rates in London.1Let’s pause on that.