Foreign Policy Blogs

Images of Health: The Equality Trust

I recently finished reading The Spirit Level, a book which presents statistical evidence that more equal societies nearly always do better in every measure of social cohesion and human well-being.  Check out this table on infant mortality.  The vertical axis represents the level of infant mortality in developed countries; the horizontal axis represents levels of inequality.  The correlation is abundantly clear – and the country in upper right field, indicating tragically high rates of infant mortality and corresponding rates of income inequality?  That’s right, the USA.  More at Equality Trust.

infant-mortality

Source: The Equality Trust

 

Author

Cynthia Schweer Rayner

Cynthia Schweer Rayner is an independent consultant and philanthropy advisor specializing in public health, social entrepreneurship and scalable business models for positive social change. As a recovering management consultant, she spent several months living in South Africa, and later co-founded the US branch of an organization providing support to orphaned and vulnerable children. In 2009, she was an LGT Venture Philanthropy Fellow, working with mothers2mothers (m2m), a multinational non-profit organization employing mothers living with HIV as peer educators to positive pregnant women. She currently works with individuals, companies and nonprofits to finance and develop models for positive change. Cynthia has an MBA from INSEAD and a BA in English Literature from Georgetown University. She currently lives in Cape Town and visits New York frequently, where she co-owns a Manhattan-based yoga studio, mang'Oh yoga (www.mangohstudio.com).