Continental Inequities In Life Expectancy (Published)
This investigation adopted documentary analysis research design that guarantees authenticity, accuracy, validity and reliability to ascertain the life expectancy of countries and continents in the world; and to determine whether statistically significant continental inequities exist in the globe. Six continents and 216 countries were randomly sampled from a population of 7 continents and 253 countries world-over for this study. Descriptive Statistics, Analysis of Variance and Bonferroni Multiple Comparisons with IBM SPSS were used for data analysis to test tenability of the null hypothesis at 0.05 alpha. Results showed that a significant continental inequities in life expectancy exist between continents in the world. Life expectancy in Africa is significantly lower than in each of all the other continents. There is an overwhelming preponderance of the statistical evidence that life expectancy in Europe is higher than in Oceania and Asia which are in turn better significantly than in Africa. Europe, North America, and South America do not differ significantly in their life expectancy. Aptly, how long are humans expected to live on each continent? The world has a mean of 72.24 life expectancy; the means for Africa is 61.14; Asia is 73.26; Europe is 78.99; North America is 76.23; South America is 74.40; and Oceania is 74.24. Every necessary measure should be taken to radically improve life expectancy in each continent, particularly in Africa.