Are Facebook and other social media platforms bad for our well-being?
What does the research tell us about the causal impact of social media use on our well-being?
September 9, 2019
Article
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Our latest articles, data updates, and announcements
September 6, 2019
Article
Which countries are most densely populated?
To understand people’s geographical distribution, we need to look at population density. How does this vary across the world?
September 3, 2019
Article
Until the late 1960s, the total fertility rate was five — since then, it has halved
In the past fifty years, the total fertility rate has steeply declined as a result of women’s empowerment, declining child mortality, and the rising cost of bringing up children.
September 2, 2019
Article
Who smokes more, men or women?
Nearly one-in-four adults in the world smokes tobacco. More than one-third of men, but just over 8% of women do. How do sex differences in smoking vary across the world?
September 2, 2019
Article
In which countries do people smoke the most?
One-in-five (20%) of adults in the world smoke tobacco. But where in the world is smoking most common?
August 28, 2019
Article
Global Inequality of Opportunity
Today’s global inequality of opportunity means that the good or bad luck of where you were born matters most for your living conditions. We look at how this chance factor is the strongest determinant of your standard of living, whether in life expectancy, income, or education.
August 27, 2019
Article
Oral rehydration therapy: a low-tech solution that has saved millions of lives
The world has made significant progress in recent decades in reducing deaths from diarrheal diseases, particularly for children. One of the most successful interventions has been oral rehydration therapy (ORT): a simple salt, water and sugar solution. We look at what ORT is, how it was developed, and how many lives it might have saved.
August 22, 2019
Article
Rotavirus vaccine - an effective tool that prevents children dying from diarrhea
Rotavirus is the leading cause of diarrheal deaths in children. There is, however, an effective tool against it: the rotavirus vaccine.
August 16, 2019
Article
More than half a million children die from diarrhea each year. How do we prevent this?
Despite being treatable and preventable, 1.6 million people died from diarrheal diseases in 2017; one-third were children under five years old. This makes it one of the largest killers of children. Here we look at where and why children are dying from diarrheal diseases, and what we can do to stop this.
August 1, 2019
Article
How many people support vaccination across the world?
Here we look at results from the largest global survey to date on attitudes to vaccination across the world.
August 1, 2019
Article
Vaccine skepticism and what to do about it
What effect do public attitudes have on vaccine coverage rates, and what can we do about skepticism toward vaccines?
July 15, 2019
Article
More than 8 out of 10 people in the world will live in Asia or Africa by 2100
Most of the world’s population growth over the next century is expected to come from Africa.
July 7, 2019
Article
Data appendix – The fight against global poverty: 200 years of progress and still a very long way to go
An online data appendix explaining the data and methods used to estimate the historical poverty trends presented in Roser and Hasell (2021)
July 4, 2019
Article
How I use Our World in Data in my work as a high school teacher
Many lecturers and teachers use Our World in Data in their teaching. This spans a range of levels from primary school to post-graduate university education. Matthew Cone, a US high-school teacher, shares how he uses OWID with his pupils.
July 3, 2019
Article
How I use Our World in Data in my work as a medical doctor
Our World in Data gets lots of feedback on how our work is used by policymakers, journalists, researchers and the public. But sometimes we get feedback from people who use us in ways we could never have imagined.
June 25, 2019
Article
Which countries achieved economic growth? And why does it matter?
Some countries have grown a lot, while others remained poor. We look at how incomes have changed around the world and why it matters.
June 24, 2019
Article
Does democracy lead to better health?
There is a cross-country correlation between democracy and health. Is there good evidence to suggest it is causal?
April 26, 2019
Article
Oceans, land, and deep subsurface: how is life distributed across environments?
Where do we find life on earth? Despite being vast, the oceans are home to just 1% of life – but the majority of animals. See how the different lifeforms are split across these global environments.
April 25, 2019
Article
Malaria was common across half the world – since then it has been eliminated in many regions
Malaria has been eliminated from large parts of Europe, the Americas, East Asia, Australia, and the Caribbean.
April 24, 2019
Article
Humans make up just 0.01% of Earth's life — what's the rest?
How is life on Earth distributed across the taxonomic kingdoms? Humans make up just 0.01% of life: but we've had much larger impacts on shaping the animal kingdom. Livestock now outweighs wild mammals and birds ten-fold.
April 23, 2019
Article
Child mortality: achieving the global goal for 2030 would be a huge achievement – but we are currently far away
15,000 children die on average every single day. Reducing child mortality is a key target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). What would it take for the world to reach it?