LAUSR

Latin America with about 10% of the world’s population is vastly under-represented in articles in the biomedical literature concerning haematological cancers. The goal of this series is to fill this gap. Namely, we and our co-authors intend to update readers on diagnoses and therapies of haematological cancers in this important and ever-emerging region. But first some definitions and demographics. First, what exactly is Latin America? Unfortunately, there is no precise definition. Latin America is relatively new term coined in 1856 and meant to refer to countries in the southern hemisphere with Latin languages including Spanish, Portuguese and French. This uncertainty has caused considerable confusion. For example, many consider Mexico part of North America. However, for purposes of this issue, we include Mexico, islands of the Caribbean and Central and South America under this rubric. Latin America is big with a land mass of 19 million square kilometres, 13% of the Earth’s land surface area. It is substantially larger than Europe, 10.5 million square kilometres and similar to the USA and Canada combined, 20.5 million square kilometres. Latin America is also populous with about 10% of the world population. The United Nations estimates the population of Latin America as 665 million, substantially larger than the European Union, 448 million and the USA and Canada, 368 million. In contrast, Latin America is relatively poor. With a gross domestic product (GDP) of $4.7 trillion USD compared with the EU, $17.9 trillion USD and the USA and Canada, $27 trillion USD. per capita GDP of Latin America is correspondingly low ($7400 USD) compared to the EU ($33,900 USD), the USA ($63,500 USD) and Canada ($43,200 USD). It is important to consider this low amount for Latin America is substantially higher than other geospaces such as South Asia ($1800 USD) and Sub-Saharan Africa ($1500). It is also important to consider extraordinary differences in per capita GDP between Latin American countries ranging from about $9000 USD in Argentina, Brasil, Cuba and Mexico to about $2000 in Honduras and Nicaragua. Haiti has a per capita GDP of < $1000. An important measure of the availability of medical care is the percentage of GDP spent on health care. For Latin America, this is about 8% compared with 10% for the EU, 20% for the USA and 13% for Canada. But these data do not tell the entire story, especially in the context of haematological cancers whose diagnoses and therapies are often expensive. How are whatever available health care resources distributed? Latin America has the highest levels of income inequality in the world. The Gini coefficient or index is a statistical measure of economic inequality and income dispersion within a country. A Gini coefficient of 0 (or 0%) means a countries’ wealth is equally shared by its inhabitants whereas a coefficient of 1 (or 100%) means one person has all a countries’ wealth. Several Latin American countries such as Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru have Gini coefficients of 40.0–44.9 like the USA (41.4) whereas others such as Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay and Venezuela have Gini coefficients of 45.0-49.9. Uruguay has a Gini coefficient of 39.7, better than the USA. Large EU countries such as the UK, France, Germany and Spain have lower Gini coefficients, 30.0–34.9 whereas Nordic countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland have coefficients of 25.0–29.9. According to the United Nations Childrens’ Fund (UNICEF), Latin America has the highest net income Gini coefficient globally at 48.3. Another measure correlated with health care access is the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI is a composite measurement indicating the average wellbeing of all people in a given country or region. A score of 0 is the poor human development and 1, the highest. The HDI of Latin America overall is about 0.76 which represents fair human development. However, scores are heterogenous with countries like Argentina and Chile with scores about 0.85 and