There is a direct relationship between poverty and health and the two most common measures used are infant mortality and life expectancy. The more a country is able to provide good nutrition, immunisation, basic preventative healthcare and good living conditions, the better it will perform with these two indicators.
Infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of children under the age of one who die each year. It is always measured as the number who die as a part of every thousand births. So if for every 1 000 children that are born in one year, 45 do not survive until their first birthday, the IMR is 45 in 1 000. The South African IMR is 45.4. In the Western Cape, which has less than the average percentage of poor people, the IMR is 26.9. (1998 figures)
Children born to poor mothers will have less chance of surviving because of the harsh conditions they live under. In developing countries the IMR is much higher than in developed countries with many babies dying from diarrhea, AIDS and malaria.
Life expectancy is the average years that a person can expect to live in a particular country. There is a difference of about 20 years in the life expectancy of someone living in the US and someone living in sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa there are warnings from some researchers that our life expectancy of around 60 years may be reduced to just over 40 years in the next decade because of AIDS.