NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, August 27, 2015

People around the world are living longer, but many are also living sicker lives for longer, according to a study of all major diseases and injuries in 188 countries.

General health has improved worldwide, thanks to significant progress against infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria in the past decade and gains in fighting maternal and child illnesses.

But healthy life expectancy has not increased as much, so people are living more years with illness and disability, according to the analysis, published in The Lancet journal.

"The world has made great progress in health, but now the challenge is to invest in finding more effective ways of preventing or treating the major causes of illness and disability," said Theo Vos, a professor at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington who led the analysis.

The study's main findings were that global life expectancy at birth for both sexes rose by 6.2 years — from 65.3 in 1990 to 71.5 in 2013. Healthy life expectancy at birth rose by 5.4 years — from 56.9 in 1990 to 62.3 in 2013.