Facts in Q&A format

The World Bank’s Human Capital Index measures “the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by age 18”. It expresses this as a value between zero and one. An economy in which the average worker achieves both full health and full education potential will score a valu...

The per capita consumption of alcohol in South Africa is 11 litres. This ranks in the top 20 per-capita alcohol consumptions worldwide for individuals drinking alcohol and is the highest consumption in Africa. ...

The infant mortality rate for 2022 is estimated at 24.3 per 1,000 live births. ...

Life expectancy at birth for 2022 is estimated at 60 years for males and 65.6 years for females. ...

The World Obesity Atlas presents data for every country based on their current and predicted levels of obesity. According to the Atlas's 2022 report, one in three South African adults is predicted to be obese by 2030. South Africa is ranked 13th out of the top 20 countries according to the report. ...

Tuberculosis was the leading underlying natural cause of death from 2016 to 2018, according to Statistics South Africa’s 2018 Mortality and Causes of Death report. ...

About 8.5 million people in the country are HIV positive. This is according to Statistics SA’s 2022 mid-year population estimates report. ...

Assault (15%) and transport accidents (11.5%) were among the leading unnatural causes of death in 2017.Note that insufficient detail on death notification forms affects this data.Related: Africa’s leading causes of death in 2016...

The Burden of Disease Research Unit of the South African Medical Research Council has been using information from the National Population Register and historical data from 2018 and 2019 to estimate the number of deaths that could be expected during 2020. They compare it with deaths registered during...