Despite the prime minister and TODAY reporters chiding Singaporeans for being diabetic, the United Nations (UN) thinks we’re actually doing just fine in the health department.
In fact, Singapore is the best performing nation out of 188 countries in meeting UN’s health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). What this means is that Singapore tops the world in making progress towards UN’s goals for infant mortality rates, smoking, vaccination, universal health coverage and more.
The results of the study were published in the journal The Lancet, which ranked the 188 nations according to their developments towards reaching UN’s goal for the year 2030. Nordic countries such as Iceland, Sweden and Norway trailed close behind Singapore in the top few. At the opposite end of the list were Afghanistan (ranked last), with the Central African Republic, Somalia, South Sudan and Chad at the bottom tier.
The goals are part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure peace and prosperity for all.
Singapore in particular scored well in lowering child mortality rates, improving death registration, malaria control, vaccine coverage and rates in homicide and deaths from road injuries.
One area that Singapore actually scored worse was in suicide mortality rates, with increased incidences as compared to last year.
