child mortality

concept · in 77 videos (2012–2026)

The death of children before age five, mostly, John says, of diseases that can be treated or prevented. Globally it fell from over 11 million deaths in 1995 to fewer than 5 million in 2024, a fall he calls not inevitable.

Videos by year: 2012: 1 · 2014: 10 · 2015: 4 · 2016: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2018: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2020: 6 · 2021: 5 · 2022: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2024: 4 · 2025: 10 · 2026: 8

Also known as: under-5 mortality, children dying of preventable causes, more likely to survive to adulthood than in 1990

Threads

• John: within 20 years absolute poverty and child mortality may be rare everywhere on Earth (2017) — prediction, due 2037; outcome not yet known, 2017
• John: the Maternal Center of Excellence will radically reduce maternal and infant mortality in Kono and beyond (2022) — prediction, came true, 2022–2026

Also named in the threads: John asks viewers to raise $100,000 via Water.org for clean water in Ethiopia, matched by Bill Gates (2014) · Awesome Socks Club: monthly sock subscription (2016) · Partners In Health maternal health project in Liberia funded by DFTBA profit (2019) · Maternal Center of Excellence: the brothers' Partners In Health project in Sierra Leone (2019) · John: the Maternal Center of Excellence will dramatically change the quality of care for women and children in its region (2020) · John: Koidu Government Hospital's special baby care unit will open later in July 2020 (2020) · Hank asks viewers to sign up for, or gift, the 2021 Awesome Socks Club at awesomesocks.club/vlogbrothers before December 11 (2020) · Awesome Coffee Club: the brothers' coffee subscription for charity (2022) · John and Hank ask viewers to sign up for the Awesome Socks Club for 2023 (2022) · Good Store: the brothers' store and subscription box at good.store giving all profit to charity (2023) · John: overall human health will get worse as the US and other countries cut health investment (2025)

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

maternal death (47) · Sierra Leone (38) · extreme poverty (18) · Koidu Government Hospital (12) · Maternal Center of Excellence (16) · progress (13) · malaria (11) · Partners In Health (22) · global health (11) · Awesome Socks Club (14)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2012

• 2012-12-17 · THE PROJECT FOR AWESOME 2012 IS HERE! Save the Children. — John says seven million children under five will die this year (2012), most of diseases that can be treated or prevented inexpensively. — 00:01:50
  • John says children first have to survive to five, and that cutting childhood illness and death rates also cuts poverty rates. — 00:02:20

2014

• 2014-01-21 · Are Poor Countries Doomed? — John says more than 6 million children died worldwide in 2013 — horrible and unjust — yet the lowest in quite a while, even as world population steadily increased. — 00:00:01
  • John says Earth has not seen a year with so few child deaths in hundreds of years, maybe a thousand. (hedged) — 00:00:25
• 2014-07-29 · Listen: Thoughts from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — John says twenty years ago more than fifteen percent of children born in Ethiopia died before age five; today it is less than seven percent. — 00:01:22
• 2014-08-19 · Baby Names: Thoughts from Rural Ethiopia — John: Asked about naming, the women agreed babies are now named at birth; some said lower child mortality might be why, but most said it is because birth certificates must now be filled out. — 00:03:20
• 2014-09-09 · Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Global Health — Bill Gates: Gates says primary health care facilities are how childhood death was brought down from about 25% of all children to about 5%. — 00:00:29
  • Bill Gates: Asked how we know care drove the drop, Gates says poor countries' statistics are poor except child deaths; deaths were very high, and vaccines against a few infectious diseases cut them a lot. — 00:01:18
• 2014-09-09 · Going to College (in Ethiopia) — John says these young people have seen the greatest drops in poverty and infant mortality in Ethiopia's history, yet tens of thousands of Ethiopian children still die yearly of easily preventable diseases. — 00:03:39
• 2014-09-23 · Looking Away — John says child death in Ethiopia has dropped by more than two-thirds in 20 years, alongside huge growth in school attendance and in college graduates. — 00:01:27
  • John says the fundraiser won't end poverty or child mortality but can change 8,000 lives, and asks viewers who can to donate at water.org/johngreen. — 00:02:59
• 2014-09-29 · Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Progress — Bill Gates: Gates says in the last ten years Ethiopia cut its childhood death rate from over 15% to about 8%; the US is below 1%. — 00:02:03
• 2014-11-28 · Global Health and Human Hair: What the Vlogbrothers are Thankful For — John is thankful that childhood death around the world is decreasing at an astonishing pace. — 00:00:40
• 2014-12-02 · What You Eat Of Those You Love — John says norovirus rarely kills US children but causes over 200,000 child deaths a year worldwide, mostly for want of clean water and rehydration solution costing about 50 cents. — 00:01:38
• …and 10 statements more in 2014 — all statements of 2014

2015

• 2015-01-27 · Will Life Get Better for the Poor? — John says hundreds of millions of people have left absolute poverty in the last 25 years, child mortality has been cut by half, and more kids than ever are vaccinated. — 00:00:16
  • John says in the rich world fewer than 1% of kids die before age 5, almost no one gets malaria, few lack vaccines for want of refrigeration, and serious child malnutrition is extremely uncommon. — 00:00:28
  • John says global child mortality halved in the last 25 years, and the Gates letter argues it can halve again in the next 15, without expensive specialists or new procedures. — 00:01:09
  • John reminds viewers that cutting infant mortality does not lead to population explosions in the long run, but quite the opposite. — 00:01:47
• 2015-09-22 · Is Poverty Necessary? Looking back at the Millennium Development Goals — John: The 66% child-mortality target will be missed, but global child mortality has more than halved since 1990; for example, measles vaccinations prevented about 15 million child deaths. — 00:02:02
• 2015-09-25 · Pissed Off for a Better World — Hank wants to be angry that children are dying, that gender inequality exists nearly everywhere, and that 6 million people will die this year (2015) without access to clean water. (doubtful: 6 million) — 00:00:46
  • After the sign-off Hank says he is honestly amazed at how far we've come, with infant mortality down and education and access to clean water up. — 00:02:45
• 2015-12-11 · The Refugee Crises: Project for Awesome 2015 — John says infant mortality has halved in the last 25 years, the share of kids in school has skyrocketed, and global poverty has diminished. — 00:03:00

2016

• 2016-02-23 · How Energy and Time Change Everything — John says about 2,000 years ago roughly half of people died before age five, and by 1800 the global under-five mortality rate had fallen only to around 43%. — 00:00:05
  • John says child mortality then fell dramatically: by 2013 the global rate was 3.4%, and in wealthy countries it is under 1%. — 00:00:19
• 2016-08-16 · Some Good News: 16 Ways 2016 Is Not a Total Dumpster Fire — John adds that child mortality is continuing to trend down in every region of the world. — video description
  • Max Roser (quoted): Max Roser of Our World in Data, as John relays him, notes that no headline ever reads that global child mortality fell by a tiny fraction since yesterday. — 00:00:15
  • John says child mortality keeps falling worldwide and 2016 is on pace to have the fewest child deaths of any year in thousands of years. — 00:00:26
• 2016-12-09 · The Difference A Decade Makes: The 10th Annual Project for Awesome Is Here! — John says a decade ago almost 13% of children in Sierra Leone died before age 5; today it is under 9%. — 00:01:10
  • John says 4 million fewer children died worldwide last year (2015) than in 2006. — 00:01:32

2017

• 2017-02-14 · Human Life Is Getting Better. Faster Than Ever Before. — recommendation: John recommends Our World in Data as an amazing resource for understanding changes in the human condition over time, from literacy to life expectancy, praising its overviews of child mortality and absolute poverty; the In a Nutshell video he references was made with it. — video description
  • John says that in 1998 more than 10 million children under 5 died and over half of kids in low-income countries were not vaccinated. — 00:00:22
  • John says that today 80% of kids in low-income countries are vaccinated, fewer than 10% of people live in absolute poverty, and fewer than 6 million children will die this year (2017). — 00:00:36
  • John says most children who die still die only because they were born poor, which is unacceptable and need not be accepted. — 00:02:23
  • John says that in 20 years (by 2037), when today's median viewer is his age, absolute poverty and child mortality may be rare everywhere on Earth. (hedged) — 00:03:25
  • John says absolute poverty and child mortality may feel beyond our control, as if only the Gateses and Buffetts can move the needle, but in reality it is up to all of us. — 00:03:46
• 2017-06-16 · When Will You Die? — Hank says average life expectancy tells you little about when an individual will die: a change in child mortality moves it far more than a change in elderly mortality. — video description
• 2017-07-18 · Accio Decade Hallows — John recalls Hank's idea that bad news usually comes all at once and good news slowly: declines in absolute poverty, child mortality and violent deaths go unreported because they are decades-long processes, not events. — 00:00:09
• 2017-12-12 · 2017 is the Best? — John says babies have never been as healthy or as likely to survive into adulthood as in 2017. — 00:01:44
  • John says that in 1995, 24% of babies born in Liberia died before age five; today it is under 7%, still far too high but down by more than two-thirds in 22 years. — 00:01:51
  • John rejects the worry that population growth is out of control: in Liberia, as everywhere, when health care improves and child mortality falls, families choose fewer children. — 00:02:09
  • John says that in the year his mother was born Portugal's child mortality rate was about 9%; in 2017 no country on Earth will have a rate that high. — 00:02:44
• …and 7 statements more in 2017 — all statements of 2017

2018

• 2018-01-23 · On Emergencies — John: With catastrophic consequences: 9% of kids born in Sierra Leone die before they are five. — 00:01:22
• 2018-08-21 · SYSTEMS!!!! — John: Between 1994 and 2014, Thailand's child mortality rate fell by more than 55%. — 00:01:13
• 2018-11-27 · On The Melian Dialogue — John says 266,000 children under five died of malaria last year (2017), almost all of them poor. — 00:01:56
• 2018-12-07 · BABIES! The 2018 Project for Awesome is here… — John says yesterday's babies were born into the healthiest, best-educated moment in human history, more than twice as likely to survive to adulthood as children born in 1990. — 00:01:17
  • John says 266,000 children are expected to die of malaria this year (2018), 728 of them born yesterday, and another 14,000 children born yesterday will die before age five. — 00:01:43
  • John says the problems are not simple but the solution is: the more humanity prioritizes the health of its most vulnerable children, the more likely they are to lead healthy lives. (hedged) — 00:02:13

2019

• 2019-10-01 · Why Are Poor Countries Poor? — The description says Sierra Leone has the world's highest maternal mortality rate and one of the highest child mortality rates, which John believes long-term investment can change. — video description
  • Nothing about Sierra Leone's poverty is natural or inevitable, so John doesn't think it is permanent; evidence worldwide shows systems can strengthen so more mothers and children survive. — 00:07:52
• 2019-10-22 · Why We're Donating $6,500,000 — John says they talk about the gift publicly to draw attention to health workers like Ruth, who need more robust systems to address the maternal and child mortality crises. — 00:01:44
  • John says 10 percent of Sierra Leonean children do not live to see their fifth birthday. — 00:02:00

2020

• 2020-01-07 · Endings · Beginnings — ask: The description asks people who can give $1,000 or more to support Partners In Health's fight to end the maternal and child mortality crises in Sierra Leone. — video description
• 2020-01-28 · Looking Away (Again) — John says most children who die in Sierra Leone die of conditions we know how to treat or prevent. — 00:01:51
  • John says he understood in the abstract that Sierra Leone's maternal and child mortality crises were emergencies but had not been treating them like emergencies. — 00:02:50
• 2020-10-05 · Thank God It's Over and PIZZAMAS IS HERE!!!!!!! — announcement: John: The Pizzamas items are sold only during this Pizzamas, and all profits and royalties go to charity to reduce child and maternal mortality, plus international COVID relief for a couple of items. — 00:00:29
• 2020-11-17 · Our Biggest Project Yet: A One Year Update — John: As Sierra Leone's health system has strengthened in recent years, child and maternal mortality have dropped sharply, showing these deaths are not inevitable. — 00:01:27
• 2020-11-27 · Finally Launching this Project!!! — announcement: Hank says shipping is free everywhere with an address and 100% of the profit goes to charity, currently to decrease maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone. — 00:02:05 · also in: Elon Was Right
• 2020-12-11 · The /W/orst Letter — Hank says all the sock club's profits will go to decreasing maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone. — 00:02:58

2021

• 2021-11-02 · enough — John says money donated now still grows, as more kids surviving to adulthood and more educational opportunities, growth far more transformational than stock appreciation. — 00:02:16
• 2021-11-05 · We Have Invented Something Marvelous — Hank says every dollar of the club's profit supports the community's work decreasing maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone. — 00:01:56
• 2021-12-21 · NOW I AM THE SCIENCE ONE… — John reports big reductions in child and maternal mortality at Koidu Government Hospital over the last year, and far more people using the health system because they feel they can get care. — 00:02:26
• …and 2 statements more in 2021 — all statements of 2021

Also named in: Breaking Ground!!!

2022

• 2022-01-04 · After 15 Years on YouTube, THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING — John: In 2021 alone Koidu Government Hospital saw a 36% reduction in child mortality at its pediatric ward. — 00:02:38
• 2022-02-22 · On the Death of My Hero — John: Child and maternal mortality are the lowest in human history and health systems are strengthening even in very poor communities, but profound health inequities persist. — 00:02:55
• 2022-03-01 (said on 2022-02-27, implied) · Hard Week — John: When John was a college freshman, children globally were twice as likely to die before age five as today: a massive human success story. — 00:02:26
• 2022-07-12 · Nauseous Puddle Water — announcement: John says all of the club's profits, not some or most, are donated to fight maternal and child mortality in impoverished communities. — 00:02:15
• 2022-09-13 · A Million Things at Once — John says in Kono 1 in 20 women will die in childbirth and 1 in 10 children won't survive to age 5. — 00:02:34
• 2022-10-11 · Most People Have Never Been 20 — John says overall life expectancy was brought below 30 only because child mortality was so high. — 00:01:56
  • John says the best current guess is that when the median person was born 2,000 years ago, half of all people died before age 10. (hedged) — 00:02:26
  • John says we can't change historical rates of premature death, but we can choose a world where fewer people die early, and he knows because we have made that choice before. — 00:03:24
• 2022-10-25 · Instantly Debateable — John: The year John graduated from high school, 11 million children under 5 died; this year (2022) fewer than 5 million will, which is still way too high. — 00:03:24
• 2022-11-15 · 3 Years In: What Happened, Why, and What's Next — John says child mortality at the hospital has fallen by over half in just the last two years. — 00:02:26
  • John says the project's biggest hope was that work in one region of one country could prove maternal and child mortality can be radically reduced everywhere and inspire other partners, which is starting to happen. — 00:04:22
  • John says we can choose a world where maternal and child deaths are rare, and he really believes the community is helping bring it about. — 00:06:49
• …and 8 statements more in 2022 — all statements of 2022

2023

• 2023-03-14 · The Seduction of Despair — John says millions of kids will die needlessly of impoverishment this year (2023), but 30 years ago kids were twice as likely to die before the age of five. — 00:02:16
  • John says that change was neither natural nor inevitable: many people collaborated across time and space, in anger, frustration and disgust, but not in hopelessness. — 00:02:30
• 2023-05-02 · GOOD NEWS — John: In Kono both maternal and child mortality have since declined dramatically. — 00:00:58
  • A special care baby unit at Koidu's hospital has already dramatically reduced child mortality. — 00:04:23
• 2023-06-13 · touched by a king — ask: John's comment says the Awesome Socks Club has reopened and urges viewers to get Awesome Coffee Club coffee, whose profits all fight maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone. — creator comment
• 2023-08-01 · Three Mornings — John says the Awesome Coffee Club donates 100% of profit to charity; Awesome Coffee, Awesome Socks and Sun Basin Soap have donated over $5 million in three years to fight maternal and infant mortality in Sierra Leone. — 00:05:20
• 2023-08-29 · Breaking News: CEO Demoted — John says the clubs donate 100% of their profit to charity and have so far raised over $5 million for better child and maternal health in Sierra Leone. — 00:00:00
• 2023-09-22 · A Feeling I've Never Felt Before — Hank reminds viewers that all Pizzamas profit goes to decreasing maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone. — 00:04:56

2024

• 2024-01-16 · The Bank of Nerdfighteria — John: In 2019 the community began supporting Partners In Health's efforts to radically reduce maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone's Kono District. — 00:00:25 · also in: The Tea
• 2024-04-26 · One Year Out. — Hank says that today only the first pair of socks from the Awesome Socks Club costs $5 with free shipping, and that 100% of the profit from it and everything at good.store goes to decrease maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone. — 00:03:52
• 2024-05-28 · A Midlife Crisis — John says Good Store has raised over $7.5 million to reduce maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone. — 00:01:27
  • John says his other work feels extremely urgent because it involves many people's livelihoods and, with tuberculosis and maternal and infant mortality, many people's lives. — 00:02:55
• 2024-10-03 · Broadly in Favor of Humans — John lists what humans did in the last eight hours of the human year: flew to the Moon, raised greenhouse gases, deforested most of North America, cut child death 95%, eliminated smallpox, grew food supply, drove large mammals toward extinction. — 00:01:59

2025

• 2025-01-03 · My 2025 Bingo Card — Hank says that a hundred years ago one in five children in the US died before age five. — 00:02:57
• 2025-01-28 · This Is Not Normal — John says over 11 million children died before age five in 1995, and fewer than 5 million did last year (2024). — 00:00:00
  • John says this fall in child mortality was not natural, normal or inevitable, and represents the greatest success in human history. — 00:00:29
  • John says that between 1920 and 1960 the chance of dying under age five fell from 18% to 3%. — 00:01:27
  • John says a central reason child mortality fell since 1995 is government-funded interventions, including US-funded PEPFAR and the Global Fund. — 00:02:55
• 2025-05-13 · I Have the BEST News — John says the MCOE will care for thousands or tens of thousands of people a year and radically reduce maternal and infant mortality in Kono and beyond. — 00:04:32
• 2025-06-10 · 90,000,000 Lives for $20 — John says graphs of child mortality, TB and HIV deaths since 2000 all bring good news, but this progress will stop and reverse because of the US-led global pullback in health funding. — 00:00:00
  • John cites a recent estimate that within five years annual TB deaths will rise from 1.3 million to 2 million, and child mortality will worsen. — 00:00:00
• 2025-10-01 · Real Reasons for Hope — announcement: John says maternal mortality at the hospital will decline further with the opening next month (November 2025) of the Maternal Center of Excellence there. — 00:03:53
• 2025-11-04 · The Real Question — John grants there is progress to point to, such as ongoing reductions in child and maternal mortality. — 00:03:24
• 2025-11-11 · John's Annual Psychophysical Decline — John calls the MCOE a statement of intent: the long-term, open-ended problems of maternal and child mortality in Kono are being met by long-term, open-ended support from the community. — 00:01:37
  • John says Good Store, another way to support Partners In Health and the Coral Reef Alliance, raised about $10 million over the last five years to fight maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone. — 00:03:04
• …and 7 statements more in 2025 — all statements of 2025

2026

• 2026-01-06 · Hope Is Not a Feeling — John notes the circular fact that deciding on a hopeful worldview makes hopeful outcomes likelier: believing the world is worth saving makes reducing under-five deaths likelier. — 00:03:24
• 2026-02-13 · Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! — John says that since he graduated from college, yearly child deaths have fallen from 11 million to 5 million: still far too high, but huge progress that is easy to forget. — 01:46:24
  • John says Hank is joking about a better 2027, but the world really can be better in 2027 than in 2026, with fewer children dying; he does not know that we are good news, but truly believes we can be. — 07:15:19
• 2026-02-24 · Risk Is a Privilege — John says the reluctance to invest in impoverished communities is the main reason maternal and child mortality were so high in Sierra Leone. — 00:02:55
  • John says more than one in 10 children in Sierra Leone died before age five and more than one in 20 women died in pregnancy or childbirth. — 00:03:24
• 2026-04-14 · Babies. Babies. Babies. — John says mothers and children who could have died now survive every week in Kono, and the community has played a small but significant role. — 00:03:24
• 2026-04-28 · What I Can't Show You — John says 500 babies were born at the MCOE in its first six weeks of operation, including over 200 C-sections, many of them emergencies that might otherwise have meant maternal and child death. — 00:05:37
• 2026-09-08 · The Life Expectancy Lies That Won't Die — John describes the backlash: the 'life expectancy myth' correction held people were not dying of old age in their mid-30s, and life expectancy was low because child mortality was so high. — 00:01:56
  • John says many humans, perhaps nearly half, died before age 5, and another 10% or so before 15. (hedged) — 00:02:26
  • John says high child mortality was a catastrophe, robbing billions of people of the chance to live loving and productive lives. — 00:03:53
  • John states the truth of historical life expectancy: high child mortality dragged it down dramatically, and the chance of dying at every decade was much higher in the past than today. — 00:04:22
  • John says child mortality has dropped from over 40% to under 4%, and has dropped every year for decades and decades. — 00:05:21
• …and 6 statements more in 2026 — all statements of 2026