Mortality, Health, and Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa

Low survival prospects, especially among adults, are holding back African development and reducing the chance of reaping a demographic dividend. Gains in life expectancy have lagged far behind those experienced in other regions, despite impressive mortality declines among children under age five in the last decade. With a life expectancy still below 60 in 2015, sub-Saharan Africa is also the region where uncertainty about levels and trends in mortality is the greatest. This is because the vital registration systems operating in the vast majority of countries fail to provide full national coverage. Few deaths have a cause certified by a medical practitioner, and there is limited evidence on the leading causes of death to make informed decisions about how to spend scarce human and financial resources. This chapter provides a cursory overview of the different data sources, and present trends in mortality among children and adults, using survey reports on the survival of close relatives. The chapter then describes major changes in the leading causes of death and highlights specific characteristics of the process of demographic aging in SSA