Orb Media Global Model: Health Investment and Child Mortality Story Measures and Calculations

 A more detailed reference of how our model was calculated from our data scientist, Heather Krause

 

Difference from the actual child mortality rate and the expected child mortality rate

Orb Media’s statistical model calculates empirical trends in country-level child mortality based on a combination of the year, the money spent on health care from a variety of sources, and  the standardized count of formally certified doctors and nurses. The output of this model is the standardized or “expected” child mortality based on each country’s health care investment and formally certified health care workers. We then use this output to calculate the difference between the actual estimated child mortality rate and the expected estimated child mortality rate. These findings are based on data from 2010–2019, combining as many years as available for each country.

 The difference is the actual raw difference between the two rates.

 

Proportional difference from the actual child mortality rate and the expected child mortality rate

The proportional difference is the change in difference divided by the absolute value of the expected value. This can be of value in order to compare the rates while taking into account the "sizes" of the things being compared.

 

Category rating for raw difference

This is a number-based category that groups countries into cohorts based on the amount we estimate they are over or underperforming in the area of child mortality based on our model. The categories are calculated based on the raw difference between the expected and actual child mortality rate, with “1” designating those who performed above expectations, and “5” designating those who performed below expectations.

 Definitions used:

●      Child mortality: Deaths per 1000 live births of children under 5 years old

●      Health care workers: Formally trained doctors and nurses per 1000 people in the country

 Datasets used:

World Health Organization (WHO)  1990 - 2019

World Bank World Development Indicators 2000 - 2019

Global Health Data Exchange IHME Data 2000 – 2019

UNICEF Child Health Data 1990 – 2019

UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation 1960 - 2019

 

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1. Let us know that you’re onboard for reporting on this story. We’ll support you with story updates, access to our journalist and data team, and additional newsroom resources. We can also satisfy any questions you might have.
2. Credit Orb Media’s work (or other graphic sources) including our original data analysis and key findings as appropriate.
3. Publish in concert with other media organizations during the week of August 10.
4. Share your expected publishing date and link (or PDF if appears in print only) with Orb so we can aggregate, promote and learn from original reporting worldwide. In the future, we’ll pass our algorithmic and framing learnings from the story’s collective performance on to you.