Global life expectancy increased nearly 20% since 1990

Issue: January 2013

Ischemic heart disease and stroke caused one in four deaths in 2010 compared with one in five deaths in 1990, data from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study suggest.

The data were published in one of seven papers about the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study, published in The Lancet. Nearly two of three deaths in 2010 were related to non-communicable disease such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease vs. one in two deaths in 1990. In 2010, 38% more people died of cancer compared with 1990.

The number of deaths related to communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional causes decreased by 17% from 1990 to 2010. However, the number of deaths attributed to HIV/AIDS and to malaria increased.

“Our analyses, for the first time, allow such comparative assessments and are important inputs into discussions about goals and targets for the post-Millennium Development Goals era,” research Rafael Lozano, MD, professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said in a press release.

Global life expectancy

In a second paper, researchers reported that the average man’s life expectancy increased 19.7% since 1970, and for women, life expectancy increased 19.8%. The number of deaths in children aged younger than 5 years declined nearly 60% since 1970.

“Because more children are now surviving to adulthood compared to earlier decades, health policy makers globally will need to pay much more attention to preventing deaths in young adults aged 15-49 in coming years,” Haidong Wang, PhD, assistant professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said in a press release.

However, despite these significant increases, the gap between the countries with the highest life expectancy and the countries with the lowest life expectancy has remained similar since 1970, about 32 to 47 years. Mortality shocks such as the 1994 Rwanda genocide were discounted for this analysis.

Japanese women had the highest life expectancy in the world at 85.9 years, and men in Iceland had the highest life expectancy at 80 years. Haiti had the lowest life expectancy in 2010 for both men and women. The Maldives saw the greatest increase in overall life expectancy: 54.4% for men and 57.6% for women since 1970.

Countries that experienced gains in life expectancy of more than 20 years include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran and Peru. Since 1990, Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda also saw substantial gains in life expectancy.

However, in southern sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy decreased by 1.3 years for men and 0.9 years for women since 1990, which is mostly attributed to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Lesotho saw the second-largest decline in life expectancy: men live 4.6 fewer years compared with 1970 and women live for 6.4 fewer years.

Healthy life expectancy

In a third paper, researchers reported that overall life expectancy at birth increased by 4.7 years for men and 5.1 years for women from 1990 to 2010. But the number of years that people could expect to live in good health increased only by 3.9 years for men and 4 years for women.

At the age of 50 years, life expectancy increased by more than 2 years in men and 2.5 years in women since 1990. But healthy life expectancy only increased by 1.5 years in both men and women. These data suggest that people are losing more years of healthy life to disability than they did 20 years ago in 1990, the researchers said.

“Health means more than simply delaying death or increasing life expectancy at birth,” Joshua Salomon, PhD, professor of global health at Harvard School of Public Health, said in a press release. “Although life expectancy is increasing globally, we need to understand whether or not people are living those extra years in good health.”

Women live longer in better health compared with men. Women in four countries had a healthy life expectancy of at least 70 years in 2010, but there were no such countries for men. In only three countries, the healthy life expectancy of men was more than women’s.

There were few changes since 1990 in the rank of countries in order of healthy life expectancy at birth. Half of the countries that had the highest healthy life expectancies in 1990 remained in the top ten for 2010. Most countries with the lowest healthy life expectancies were in sub-Saharan Africa. Afghanistan and Haiti were the only countries outside of Africa in the 10 countries with the lowest healthy life expectancies.

For more information:

Lozano R. Lancet. 2012;380:2095-2128.

Salomon J. Lancet. 2012;380:2144-2162.

Wang H. Lancet. 2012;380:2071-2094.

Disclosure: Lozano, Salomon and Wang report no relevant financial disclosures.