The rise of social media
Social media sites are used by more than two-thirds of Internet users. How has social media grown over time?
September 18
Article
Latest
Our latest articles, data updates, and announcements
September 13
Article
The world now produces more seafood from fish farms than wild catch
Growing demand for seafood has placed increasing pressures on wild fish populations. One innovation has helped to alleviate some of the pressure on wild fish catch: aquaculture, the practice of fish and seafood farming. Aquaculture production has now overtaken wild fish catch.
September 12
Article
How often did parents see their children die?
The death of a young child has always been the most devastating tragedy mothers and fathers could experience. How common was it?
September 09
Article
Are Facebook and other social media platforms bad for our well-being?
What does the research tell us about the causal impact of social media use on our well-being?
September 06
Article
Which countries are most densely populated?
To understand people’s geographical distribution, we need to look at population density. How does this vary across the world?
September 03
Article
Until the late 1960s, the total fertility rate was five — since then, it has halved
In the past fifty years, the total fertility rate has steeply declined as a result of women’s empowerment, declining child mortality, and the rising cost of bringing up children.
September 02
Article
Who smokes more, men or women?
Nearly one-in-four adults in the world smokes tobacco. More than one-third of men, but just over 8% of women do. How do sex differences in smoking vary across the world?
September 02
Article
In which countries do people smoke the most?
One-in-five (20%) of adults in the world smoke tobacco. But where in the world is smoking most common?
August 28
Article
Global Inequality of Opportunity
Today’s global inequality of opportunity means that the good or bad luck of where you were born matters most for your living conditions. We look at how this chance factor is the strongest determinant of your standard of living, whether in life expectancy, income, or education.
August 27
Article
Oral rehydration therapy: a low-tech solution that has saved millions of lives
The world has made significant progress in recent decades in reducing deaths from diarrheal diseases, particularly for children. One of the most successful interventions has been oral rehydration therapy (ORT): a simple salt, water and sugar solution. We look at what ORT is, how it was developed, and how many lives it might have saved.
August 22
Article
Rotavirus vaccine - an effective tool that prevents children dying from diarrhea
Rotavirus is the leading cause of diarrheal deaths in children. There is, however, an effective tool against it: the rotavirus vaccine.
August 16
Article
More than half a million children die from diarrhea each year. How do we prevent this?
Despite being treatable and preventable, 1.6 million people died from diarrheal diseases in 2017; one-third were children under five years old. This makes it one of the largest killers of children. Here we look at where and why children are dying from diarrheal diseases, and what we can do to stop this.
August 01
Article
How many people support vaccination across the world?
Here we look at results from the largest global survey to date on attitudes to vaccination across the world.
August 01
Article
Vaccine skepticism and what to do about it
What effect do public attitudes have on vaccine coverage rates, and what can we do about skepticism toward vaccines?
July 15
Article
More than 8 out of 10 people in the world will live in Asia or Africa by 2100
Most of the world’s population growth over the next century is expected to come from Africa.
July 07
Article
Data appendix – The fight against global poverty: 200 years of progress and still a very long way to go
An online data appendix explaining the data and methods used to estimate the historical poverty trends presented in Roser and Hasell (2021)
July 04
Article
How I use Our World in Data in my work as a high school teacher
Many lecturers and teachers use Our World in Data in their teaching. This spans a range of levels from primary school to post-graduate university education. Matthew Cone, a US high-school teacher, shares how he uses OWID with his pupils.
July 03
Article
How I use Our World in Data in my work as a medical doctor
Our World in Data gets lots of feedback on how our work is used by policymakers, journalists, researchers and the public. But sometimes we get feedback from people who use us in ways we could never have imagined.
June 25
Article
Which countries achieved economic growth? And why does it matter?
Some countries have grown a lot, while others remained poor. We look at how incomes have changed around the world and why it matters.
June 24
Article
Does democracy lead to better health?
There is a cross-country correlation between democracy and health. Is there good evidence to suggest it is causal?
April 26
Article
Oceans, land, and deep subsurface: how is life distributed across environments?
Where do we find life on earth? Despite being vast, the oceans are home to just 1% of life – but the majority of animals. See how the different lifeforms are split across these global environments.