Category: Our World in Data

We just did our annual update of global Polio data
Some of these paleopathologists have found skeletons with typical polio marks stemming from4000-2400BC Sussex, England (Wells, C. (1965). Bones, Bodie [...]

Humans destroyed forests for thousands of years – we can become the first generation that achieves a world in which forests expand
For thousands of years humans have destroyed forests. At the end of the last great ice age, an estimated 57% of the world’s habitable land was foreste [...]

We just published our IPCC Climate Scenario Explorer
What are the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs)?The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways are a set of scenarios which are central to the work of the UN cli [...]
We just did our annual update of global electricity data
License: All the material produced by Our World in Data, including interactive visualizations and code, are completely open access under the Creative [...]

At what age do people experience depression for the first time?
Solmi, M., Radua, J., Olivola, M., Croce, E., Soardo, L., Salazar de Pablo, G., Il Shin, J., Kirkbride, J. B., Jones, P., Kim, J. H., Kim, J. Y., Carv [...]

Increasing agricultural productivity across Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most important problems this century
If Africa does not improve its agricultural productivity, what would happen? Progress on poverty will be slow – much of its population will cont [...]

How could the war in Ukraine impact global food supplies?
The potential impacts of reduced food outputs from Ukraine and Russia will not be felt equally everywhere. Some of the most vulnerable are countries t [...]

Malaria: One of the leading causes of child deaths, but progress is possible and you can contribute to it
Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems.This article draws on data and research discus [...]

The Future is Vast: Longtermism’s perspective on humanity’s past, present, and future
1.5 million years remaining: If Homo sapiens survives as long as Homo erectusHow long has Homo Erectus existed? Homo erectus is an extinct specie [...]
We just published our new data explorer on fossil fuels
License: All the material produced by Our World in Data, including interactive visualizations and code, are completely open access under the Creative [...]