New Delhi: People around the world are living longer, even in some of the poorest countries. According to recent research global life expectancy has risen by more than six years since 1990.
However, a complex mix of fatal and nonfatal ailments such as — ischemic heart disease, lower respiratory infections, and stroke — causes a tremendous amount of health loss, according to a new analysis of all major diseases and injuries in 188 countries.
According to the Lancet, due to marked decline in death and illnesses caused by HIV/AIDS and malaria in the past decade and significant advances ma-de in addressing communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional disorders, health has improved significantly around the world. Global life expectancy at birth for both sexes rose by 6.2 years (from 65.3 in 1990 to 71.5 in 2013), while healthy life expectancy at birth rose by 5.4 years (from 56.9 in 1990 to 62.3 in 2013). Healthy life expectancy takes into account not just mortality, but also the impact of nonfatal conditions and summarises years lived with disability and years lost due to premature mortality. The increase in healthy life expectancy has not been as dramatic as the growth of life expectancy, and as a result, people are living more years with illness and disability.
Published in the Lancet on Thursday, the study was conducted by an international consortium of researchers working on the global burden of disease study and led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
