Free and universal basic healthcare, community case management programs and proactive public health surveillance programs are effective in drastically reducing infant mortality rates, according to data from a seven-year, peer-reviewed study, published this month in BMJ Global Health.

The incidence rate of life-threatening febrile illnesses in children under the age of five was decreased from nearly 40% to just over 20%. Accordingly, in 2015, the under-five death rate fell to just 7 in 1,000 — equal to that of the United States — in Mali, one of the world’s poorest countries.

Learn more in this report by The Atlantic‘s Vann R. Newkirk II.