Life Expectancy Climbs Worldwide but People Spend More Years Living with Illness and Disability

Life Expectancy Climbs Worldwide but People Spend More Years Living with Illness and Disability Global life expectancy has risen by more than six years since 1990 as healthy life expectancy grows. People around the world are living longer, even in some of the poorest countries, but a complex mix of fatal and nonfatal ailments causes a tremendous amount of health loss, according to a new analysis of all major diseases and injuries in 188 countries. Thanks to marked declines in death and illness caused by HIV/AIDS and malaria in the past decade and significant advances made 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, or HALE, 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 summarizes 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. Japan had the highest healthy life expectancy followed by Singapore, Andorra, Iceland, Cyprus, Israel, France, Italy, South Korea, Canada. Notice a country missing?!