Life expectancy rises, but many are spending lives being sick
Around the world, people are living longer lives—but sadly; most spend their extended time being sick. This was proven by a study across 188 countries.
The study found out the global life expectancy increased from 65.3 in 1990 to 71.5 in 2015. Healthy life expectancy is a different matter, though. It is the span of time people are expected to live healthy lives. Healthy life expectancy also went up from 56.9 in 1990 to 62.3 in 2013.
There is a 9.2 year gap between life and healthy life expectancy. This is the amount of time, at least according to the global average, that people would spend battling illnesses like heart and lung diseases.
“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.
While most of the world increased their expected healthy years, some countries like South Africa, Paraguay, and Belarus actually have lower life expectancies. In extreme cases like Lesotho and Swaziland, people born in 2013 will have 10 fewer years of health than their parents born 20 years before.
In the healthy life expectancy spectrum, Lesotho had the lowest at 42 and Japan had the highest at 73.4 years.
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