Global probability of a child dying before reaching age five, expressed as deaths per 1,000 live births. A headline SDG 3.2 welfare indicator: it integrates the effects of nutrition, immunization, maternal and primary health care, water/sanitation and poverty into a single survival measure. Lower is better.
How to read it
Lower is better — readings above the norm count as worse, so they plot downward here.
Measured value over time. Its norm (25.0 deaths per 1,000 live births) is far off this scale, so the series stays worse than norm throughout — the deviation badge shows the gap.
Each driver linked to this indicator, strongest pull first, on the same timeline above. Markers are the facts that moved that driver. These are modelled influences — treat them as correlational unless a documented causal edge is shown.
Higher immunization investment lowers vaccine-preventable child deaths, pushing the under-five mortality rate down (a beneficial reduction in a lower-is-better indicator).
Active armed conflict collapses health systems, sanitation and nutrition and displaces families, raising vaccine-preventable and malnutrition-related deaths among children — armed conflict is a leading driver of elevated under-five mortality in affected regions.
By opening immunity gaps and enabling outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease, hesitancy raises child deaths, increasing the under-five mortality rate (a worsening of a lower-is-better indicator).
Sharp cost-of-living and food-price shocks raise child undernutrition and reduce care-seeking in low-income households, increasing under-five mortality.
Durable ceasefires and peace processes let health, nutrition and immunization services recover in former conflict zones, lowering child mortality over time.
Education — especially maternal and female schooling — is a well-documented long-run determinant of lower child mortality; the effect is real but slow and indirect.
Projected scenarios from the Factrail model. These describe what may happen under stated assumptions — they are not confirmed facts and may change as new data arrives.
Horizon: Jun 9, 2026 – Dec 31, 2027
Under a baseline in which global immunization investment only partially recovers and vaccine hesitancy stays elevated, MCV1 coverage holds near its 83-84% plateau and the global under-five mortality rate continues to fall but more slowly, remaining above the SDG 3.2 normal line of 25 per 1,000 through 2027.
Assumptions
This indicator’s slice of Factrail’s verified causal web — the people, facts, drivers and welfare indicators it connects to. Select any node to trace a path.
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Assumes no major new donor surge or pandemic-scale disruption; immunization-investment intensity stays near its partially recovered ~0.75 level; vaccine hesitancy remains elevated relative to pre-2017; ~14.5 million zero-dose children are only gradually reduced. A baseline, not a worst case.
This is a projected scenario, not a confirmed fact.
Updated
Global probability of a child dying before reaching age five, expressed as deaths per 1,000 live births. A headline SDG 3.2 welfare indicator: it integrates the effects of nutrition, immunization, maternal and primary health care, water/sanitation and poverty into a single survival measure. Lower is better.