Nigeria is world’s 163rd healthiest country —Report

A new report by The Lancet, the world’s leading independent medical journal, has placed Nigeria at the 163rd position in health ranking out of the 188 countries assessed.

Iceland, according to the report, is world’s healthiest country.

The report assessed the 188 countries in 33 health-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators across 25 years.

The report, which used the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study 2015, examined health in countries around the world to create a global ranking. The indicators are ranked from 0-100, with 0 being the worst, and 100 the best.

Joining Iceland in the top 10 countries are Singapore, Sweden, Andora, UK, Finland, Spain, Netherlands, Canada and Australia.

Mauritius is the healthiest African country coming 48th in the ranking, while Chad, Niger, South Sudan, Somalia and Central African Republic make up the last five countries in the ranking.

All the countries were assessed in areas such as disaster, stunting, wasting, overweight, MMR, SBA, under-5 mortality, NN mortality, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

Others are NTDs, NCDs, suicide, alcohol, road injuries, family planning need met, adolescence birth rate, Universal Health Coverage tracer, air poll mortality, WaSH mortality, poisons, smoking, IPV, water, sanitation, hygiene, HH air poll, occupational risk burden, Mean PM 2.5, violence and war.

Nigeria scored 2 per cent in malaria, 5 per cent in water provision and 6 per cent in hygiene. She also scored 20 per cent in HIV, 23 per cent in under-5 mortality and 26 per cent in adolescent birth rate. The country’s highest score is in smoking where it scored 90 per cent.

Iceland scored 100 per cent in 12 of the areas assessed and above 90 per cent in eight other areas.

Writing on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) method adopted for the research, the journal noted, “GBD is an annual effort to measure the health of populations at regional, country, and selected subnational levels.

“GBD produces estimates of mortality and morbidity by cause, age, sex, and country for the period 1990 to the most recent year, reflecting all available data sources  adjusted  for  bias.  GBD  also  measures  many  health  system characteristics,  risk  factor  exposure,  and mortality  and  morbidity  attributable  to  these risks. In addition   to   providing   highly   detailed   standardised information   for   many   outcomes   and   risks,   various summary   measures   are   also   computed,   including disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) and healthy life expectancy.”