Cuba’s Health, by the Numbers

Cuba's Health, by the Numbers
Savita Iyer
December 14, 2015

This story is part of a weeklong Yahoo series marking one year since the
opening of relations between the United States and Cuba.

See video at:
https://www.yahoo.com/health/cuba-s-health-by-the-1319226467352630.html

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

Source: Cuba's Health, by the Numbers -
https://www.yahoo.com/health/cuba-s-health-by-the-1319226467352630.html