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Hans Rosling, the Swedish global health academic and professional myth-debunker, has died aged 68.
The statistician and epidemiologist had been suffering from pancreatic cancer. His death was announced by the Gapminder foundation in Sweden, a self-proclaimed “fact tank” which provides free teaching materials and a data visualiser tool to help share truths about global development and dispel prolific and damaging myths about the so-called “developing world”. Set up by his son and daughter-in-law, Rosling's work was central to Gapminder's development.
Rosling, who died in Uppsala, is best known for sharing fact-based insights into global health and economics in incredibly compelling and easily digestible formats. The original infographic master, he kept teaching at the Karolinska Institute but from 2007 dedicated most of his time to Gapminder and spreading news of its work worldwide, including through a series of ten TED talks.
In the statement announcing his death, his Gapminder cofounders - son Ola Rosling and daughter-in-law Anna Ronlund - recall how Rosling referred to himself as an Edutainer. And the word was indeed, made for him. It’s impossible to hit pause on his lively talks - Melinda Gates, one of the many people who sought his advice over the years (including Mark Zuckerberg, Al Gore, Fidel Castro and WHO director-general Margaret Chan), referred to the experience of listening to his talks as being filled with “aha” moments. The TED organisation said: “Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling.”
His energetic speaking style has been likened to that of a sportscaster - he leaps through stats and visualisations to take listeners through a story that might cross hundreds of years and continents in just minutes.
Gapminder, which encourages institutions to make their data public and free (it helped convince the World Bank to oblige), vowed to continue Rosling’s work: “Hans is no longer alive, but he will always be with us and his dream of a fact-based worldview, we will never let die.”
Hans Rosling has worked at the frontline of health crises around the globe including, most recently, Ebola in west Africa; was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People globally in 2012; co-founded Médecins sans Frontièrs Sweden; and was a practised sword-swallower.
For more about the incredible work and life of Hans Rosling, read Nature’s in-depth December profile piece. And if you want an “aha” moment, here are three of his best TED talks:
“Swedish top students know statistically significantly less about the world than the chimpanzees,” said Rosling, to a highly amused TED crowd back in 2006. His point was that students had preconceived notions about child mortality statistics that were damaging - and he sought to debunk them. Through a series of stats pulled together from the World Bank, United Nations and more, he points out that everyone is better off than in years past, with less global poverty, life expectancy increased significantly, and the gap between the richest and poorest slowly shrinking.
He also says that sweeping statements about “Africa” or other regions being poor are misguided. Pointing to different regions in his infographic, he exclaims: “Here, time to invest; there, you can go for a holiday. It's a tremendous variation within Africa which we rarely often make - that it's equal everything… I can split Arab states. How are they? Same climate, same culture, same religion - huge difference. Even between neighbours. Yemen, civil war. United Arab Emirates, money, which was quite equally and well used. Not as the myth is.” The talk has been watched more than two million times on YouTube and introduced the world to Hans Rosling.
This 2010 talk argues that the greatest invention of the industrial revolution helped us do our laundry. In the advent of a piece of kit many now take for granted, time was freed up for people - particularly for women - to explore intellectual pursuits or spend time helping their children explore the world. Rosling shared his mother’s view on having this piece of technology in the home: “She said, ‘Now Hans, we have loaded the laundry. The machine will make the work. And now we can go to the library.’ Because this is the magic: you load the laundry, and what do you get out of the machine? You get books out of the machines, children's books. And mother got time to read for me. She loved this. I got the ‘ABC's’ - this is where I started my career as a professor, when my mother had time to read for me. And she also got books for herself. She managed to study English and learn that as a foreign language. And she read so many novels, so many different novels here. And we really, we really loved this machine.”
Hans Rosling knew when Asia would surpass the US and become the world’s dominant economic force once again. On 27 July, 2048 China and India will pass the line, he predicted - the serious answer at the end of an analytical talk, was also a joke. 27 July was Rosling’s birthday and, to much applause and laughter, he said: “The 27th of July, 2048 is my 100th birthday. And I expect to speak in the first session of the 39th TED India. Get your bookings in time.”
His talk pointed to inequality being the “big obstacle” for the two countries - “because to bring the entire population into growth and prosperity is what will create a domestic market, what will avoid social instability, and which will make use of the entire capacity of the population. So, social investments in health, education and infrastructure, and electricity is really what is needed in India and China.”
The 2009 talk also predicted that China and India would be the worst affected by climate change if action is not taken soon: “And I consider India and China the best partners in the world in a good global climate policy. But they ain't going to pay for what others, who have more money, have largely created, and I can agree on that.”
His greatest fear was how this shift can occur without war following. It's only 2017, and already we can see the aggressive rhetoric pitted against China in relation to trade and global diplomacy by president Donald Trump whose “Make America Great Again” slogan could be interpreted as “Make Sure No One Else Is Richer And More Powerful By Any Means”.
So take heed, Trump, as Rosling says: “Always avoid war, because that always pushes human beings backward. Now if these inequalities, climate and war can be avoided, get ready for a world in equity, because this is what seems to be happening.”
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
