Cuba’s Health, by the Numbers
For a small country that has had limited resources, Cuba seems to stack up favorably on key health indicators when compared to the United States. However, those like Katherine Hirschfeld, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, who have spent time in Cuba, say these numbers — provided to international bodies like the World Bank and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) by Cuba’s Ministry of Health — should not be taken at face value, since Cuba does not allow outside agencies to independently verify its health claims. And since the military took over public health programs in the early 1960s, the system has been under very strict authoritarian control.
“The true health status of the Cuban population is not easy to estimate given the limitations of available data,” Hirschfeld tells Yahoo Health. “It is easy to look across the way to countries like Haiti and see that Cuban health is much better than Haitian health, but other countries like Costa Rica have achieved positive health gains without resorting to such authoritarian tactics.”
That being said, take a look at the official reported numbers for Cuban health care compared with the United States in the video above.
Video by Alex Tepper
