Population Reference Bureau (PRB) has released the 2024 edition of its World Population Data Sheet, which provides global, regional, and country-specific data on population growth and decline, age structure, and fertility. Indicators unique to this year’s report relate to primary health care (PHC) – the 2024 data sheet’s special focus.

The report defines PHC as “an approach to health that is integrated, tailored to individuals’ and families’ needs, and delivered as close as possible to people’s daily environment.” It finds that about 50% of the world’s population lacks access to good PHC and that increasing investments in PHC can improve health outcomes and help countries achieve the SDGs.

The 2024 World Population Data Sheet explains that as “a platform for integrated health service delivery to meet people’s changing needs at every age, such as pregnancy care, childhood immunizations, and care for noncommunicable diseases like high blood pressure (hypertension),” PHC can help people live longer and healthier lives.

The report calls for investments to improve access to people-centered, continuous, comprehensive, and coordinated PHC across low-income countries (LICs) and middle-income countries (MICs) by increasing the availability and retention of staff, which, it argues, could prevent up to 60 million deaths by 2030 and increase average life expectancy by 3.7 years. At the same time, it acknowledges that many countries lack sufficient resources, and shortages in trained health professionals contribute to overworked personnel and worse quality of care.

For the first time, the 2024 report provides data on the following special indicators:

• Health care workers per 10,000 population, including medial doctors, nursing and midwifery personnel, and community health workers;
• Hypertension controlled among those ages 30 to 79 (%);
• Universal health care (UHC) service coverage index, measuring average coverage of essential PHC services among general and most disadvantaged populations (0 (worst) to 100 (best)); and
• Health spending per capita (USD), including total health spending and primary health care-specific spending.

Some of the report’s findings include that the UHC service coverage index ranges widely. It is 27 for Somalia; 35 for Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Niger; 44 for Cameroon and Togo; 54 for Nepal and Haiti; 63 for India; 81 for China; and 91 for Canada. Significant variations are reported in the number of health care workers in nursing and midwifery per 10,000 population. While globally, there are 38 nursing and midwifery personnel per 10,000 population, this number is 137 in Australia and 119 in the US, but only 35 in China, 23 in Guatemala, and 6 in Kenya.

On population growth and decline, the report projects the current global population of over 8 billion to reach nearly 9.6 billion by 2050. A 9% drop in Eastern Europe’s population is anticipated by 2050, while Africa is expected to account for 62% of global population growth by the same time horizon. Some of the country-specific projections for 2050 include: an increase in Nigeria’s population of 54%; a rise in Tanzania’s population of almost 90%; India’s population increase from today’s 1.4 billion to nearly 1.7 billion; and a drop in the current population of the Republic of Korea of just under 52 million to just over 47 million.

The report’s findings on age structure highlight that 10% of the world’s population is ages 65 and older, while 25% is under age 15. The world’s youngest region is sub-Saharan Africa where 41% of the population is age 15 or younger. The oldest populations are found in: Monaco, where the share of the population ages 65 and older is 36%; Japan, with 29% of its population ages 65 and older; and Southern Europe – the oldest region in the world, with 22% of its population ages 65 and older.

The report estimates the global total fertility rate – average lifetime live births per woman – at 2.2, with significant regional variations. For example, in Middle Africa, this rate is 5.5, while in East Asia it sits at a mere 1.0. The total fertility rate also varies widely across countries, ranging from 6.1 in Niger, 4.6 in Yemen, and 3.4 in Kenya to 2.0 in Peru, 1.6 in the US and New Zealand, 1.0 in China and Ukraine, and 0.7 in the Republic of Korea.

According to the report, globally, 63% of married women ages 15-49 use some method of family planning. In some regions, the share is relatively high (78% in South America), while in other regions, it is considerably lower (50% in Northern Africa and 45% in Eastern Africa).

Resource：IISD
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