Global life expectancy will increase by nearly five years by 2050

Life expectancy worldwide is expected to increase by nearly five years by 2050, new findings suggest.

The forecast shows that between 2022 and 2050 life expectancy for men is expected to increase from 71.1 years to 76 years and from 76.2 years to 80.5 years for women. According to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 Study, countries where life expectancy is currently lower are expected to see the largest increases.

The trend is largely driven by public health measures that have prevented and improved survival rates from cardiovascular disease, Covid-19 and a number of communicable diseases (diseases that spread from one person to another), maternal, neonatal and nutrition (CMNN), experts said.

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Dr Chris Murray, chair of health measurement sciences at the University of Washington in the US and director of the Institute for Health Values ​​and Evaluation (IHME), said: “In addition to the increase in life expectancy overall, we found that the disparity in life expectancy of life between geographical areas will diminish.

“This is an indicator that while health inequalities between the highest and lowest income regions will remain, the gaps are narrowing, with the largest increases anticipated in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Although global life expectancy is projected to increase from 2022 to 2050, the improvement has been at a slower pace than in the three decades preceding the Covid-19 pandemic, the study found.

This study indicates that the continued shift away from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes and exposure to NCD risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, unhealthy diet and smoking will have the greatest effect on the impact of health problems of the next generation.

Global life expectancy is projected to increase from 73.6 years in 2022 to approximately 78.1 years in 2050 (an increase of 4.5 years). But global healthy life expectancy, the average number of years a person can expect to live in good health, will rise from 64.8 years in 2022 to 67.4 years in 2050, an increase of just 2.6 years.

This suggests that while more people are expected to live longer, they are also expected to spend more years in poor health. The findings build on results from the GBD 2021 Risk Factors Study, also published Thursday in The Lancet.

The research found that the total number of years lost to poor health and premature death attributable to metabolic risk factors such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high BMI has increased by almost 50% (49.4%) since 2000.

The analysis based its estimates on 88 risk factors and their associated health outcomes for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2021. Particulate air pollution, smoking, and low birth weight and short gestation were also among the largest contributors to years of healthy life lost due to poor health and early death in 2021, with considerable variation by age, gender and location.

The study found that substantial progress was made between 2000 and 2021 in reducing disease attributable to maternal and child health risk factors, unsafe water, sanitation and handwashing; and household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels.

Dr Emmanuela Gakidou, Professor of Health Measurement Sciences at IHME, said: “Risk factors that currently lead to ill health, such as obesity and other components of the metabolic syndrome, exposure to ambient particulate air pollution and consumption of tobacco, must be addressed. through a combination of global health policy efforts and exposure reduction to mitigate health risks and improve population health.”

Dr Murray said: “A huge opportunity awaits us to influence the future of global health by overcoming these growing metabolic and dietary risk factors, particularly those linked to behavioral and lifestyle factors such as high blood sugar, the high body mass and high blood pressure.”

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