New data from North Korea show a “slight” improvement in children’s health, the United Nations reported Wednesday, saying the isolated nation had made a st
GENEVA – New data from North Korea show a “slight” improvement in children’s health, the United Nations reported Wednesday, saying the isolated nation had made a step forward by providing better information about the condition of its people.
The findings published by UNICEF were based on surveys of more than 8,500 North Korean households conducted by the government’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
While North Korean children continue to confront major health challenges, the data show that the national stunting rate, a key indicator of malnutrition among children, dropped from 32.4 percent in 2009 — the last time the surveys were conducted — to 19 percent last year.
But the figures on stunting varied significantly across the country.
In Pyongyang, 10 percent of children were affected by stunting, while in the rural Ryanggang province the rate was 32 percent.
Pyongyang’s cooperation with UNICEF in collecting and releasing the data has also improved substantially since 2009, the agency’s East Asia and Pacific director, Karin Hulshof, told reporters in Geneva.
“This new seriousness and improved openness about data is in UNICEF’s view a real step forward,” she said.
Hulshof declined to tie North Korea’s increased cooperation to changes that followed the death of leader Kim Jong Il in December 2011.
His son and successor, Kim Jong Un, has made a series of outreaches to the international community, including a historic nuclear summit with U.
