Rwanda and Oregon:
Brice kindly posted some statistics for Rwanda under comments for the 'Changing environments' post... I thought it might be interesting to do an Oregon comparison:
- not all statistics are directly comparable, but it does allow for some...

Rwanda is an East African country with an area of 26,338 square kilometers.
Oregon is a US state with an area of 251,419 sq km.

Rwanda has a total population of 8.2 million and a Per Capita GNP of 250US $.
Oregon has a total population of 3.7 million and a per capita G(S)P of 39,649 US $.

Rwanda shares borders with four other countries which are: Uganda in the North, Burundi in the South, Tanzania in the East and Democratic Republic of Congo in the West.
Oregon shares borders with the U.S. states of Washington to the North, California and Nevada to the South, and Idaho to the East.

Health care delivery and Medical Personnel:
Rwanda: Doctors: 1/50,000 inhabitants
Oregon: Doctors: 12.1/50,000 people (from 2.42 per 1,000 people)

Rwanda: Nurses: 1/3,900 inhabitants
Oregon: 30.8/3,900 residents (from 790.4 RNs per 100,000 population in Oregon in 2000)

Rwanda: 17% of Nurses in rural areas
Oregon: don't know

Rwanda: Access to Health care facilities : 37.9%
Oregon: Uninsured: 15.9%

Rwanda: Life expectancy at birth 52.73 years
Oregon: Life expectancy at birth 77.9 years

Infant and Maternal Mortality:
Rwanda:
• Infant mortality: 86/1000
• Under 5 Mortality: 152/1000
• Under 5 years severe malnutrition: 19.4%
• Maternal mortality: 750/ 100,000
• Assisted deliveries: 48.6%
Oregon:
• Infant mortality: 5.9 per 1,000 in 2005
• Under 5 Mortality: n/a
• Under 5 years severe malnutrition: n/a
• Maternal mortality: n/a
• Assisted deliveries: n/a

HIV/AIDS and other epidemics:
Rwanda: • HIV prevalence: 3%
Oregon: HIV prevalence: 0.13%

Rwanda: TB (2003): 6,046 cases in the country
Oregon: 81 cases in 2006

Rwanda: • Malaria admission cases in hospitals 36.8%
Oregon: n/a

Education:
Rwanda:
Concerning medical education, there is one Faculty of Medicine/School of Medicine within the National University of Rwanda (http://www.nur.ac.rw/ ). 65 to 100 students are admitted every year; our medical education covers 6 years, the final year being entirely devoted to clinical rotations. Other medical personnel are trained at Kigali Health Institute: http://www.khi.ac.rw/
Oregon:
Has one academic health institution - Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon (http://www.ohsu.edu). Approximately 115 medical students admitted each year; generally a 4 year course. Nursing school admits about 300 students per year.

U.S. and Rwanda on Gapminder

Follow this link (takes a while to load depending on your connection) to see Rwanda and the U.S. graphed in terms of: expected life expectancy and income over the past 50 years. Thanks to www.gapminder.org! You can change the axes if you wish.

Rwanda and the U.S.

You can see the drastic effect of what I presume to be HIV in the mid-80s on Rwanda's life expectancy and a small but not as much of an effect in the U.S.

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alex

changing environments

One way of creating context for global health is that of changing environments - environments being defined broadly as political, physical, social, economic etc.

What are some of the 'environmental' changes that you've seen in Rwanda recently and how do you see those as affecting health there?