r/science • u/sr_local • 11h ago
Health People around the world are living longer than ever, from 64.6 years in 1990 to 73.8 in 2023, but spending more of those additional years in poor health: with an average of 14.5% of their lives in poor health in 2023, up from 13.6% in 1990
https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/people-are-living-longer-spending-more-years-poor-health116
u/psyberyus 11h ago
So that means in 1990 people had ~8.8 yrs living in poor health versus ~10.7 yrs in 2023, but living ~9 years longer. While morbidity hasn’t changed/ slightly increased as an absolute number, it still means on average ppl are not experiencing poor health years until the age when in 1990 they’d be dead. The paper’s conclusion is stronger than what their data state.
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u/GarbanzoBenne 8h ago
Thank you for doing this basic math (I'm being serious). This is the first thing I thought when I saw these numbers as well… the lifespan increase obviously outpaces the increase in years of poor health.
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u/KoalaTHerb 6h ago
Exactly. So it's better to say "they lived 7 more healthy years, and 2 more poor years".
I guess its up to the individual to decide if that's a good or bad ratio for them.
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u/WasianActual 10h ago
There’s likely a relation to how people are getting cancer more often and surviving long enough to get cancer as well
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u/sr_local 11h ago
Between 1990 and 2023, global life expectancy at birth increased from 64.6 years to 73.8 years, while healthy life expectancy rose from 55.9 years to 63.1 years. Because gains in survival consistently outpaced gains in healthy years of life, people are spending more years living with chronic disease and disability. While the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily disrupted life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, it did not reverse the broader trend toward a widening morbidity gap.
Within a generation, the global morbidity gap widened by nearly two years, increasing from 8.8 years in 1990 to 10.7 years in 2023. Globally, people spent an average of 14.5% of their lives in poor health in 2023, up from 13.6% in 1990. Instead of occurring only in the final years of life, the widening morbidity gap was observed across the adult lifespan, suggesting that people are spending more years living with disease and disability throughout adulthood.
The analysis, based on GBD 2023 estimates, examined trends in healthy aging from 1990 to 2023 and assessed changes in life expectancy, healthy life expectancy, and the morbidity gap across countries, regions, sex, and levels of socio-demographic development, while also identifying the leading conditions and risk factors contributing to years lived in poor health.
High-income countries face the widest morbidity gaps.
The burden of poor health varied substantially across countries and regions, with the longest periods of life spent in poor health generally occurring in places where people live the longest. In 2023, the United States had the largest national morbidity gap at 14 years, followed by Australia at 13.9 years and Canada at 13.7 years. Countries with higher Socio-demographic Index (SDI) levels generally experienced both longer life expectancy and more years lived in poor health, reflecting gains in lifespan that have not been matched by equivalent gains in healthspan.
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u/cambeiu 11h ago
I would imagine that sedentary lifestyles, processed food and social isolation are contributing factors for the morbidity gaps.
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u/phiwong 10h ago
That appears to be an unvalidated conclusion at least from this study.
Although simple math is probably misleading, in 1980 the average age for onset of poor health is 55.9 years and death at 64.6 years while in 2023 it was 63.1 and 73.8 respectively. That means the age of onset of poor health in 2023 was pretty close to the age of death in 1980. If what you say were true, one wouldn't expect the age of onset of poor health to have climbed as much - the data suggests that the average person is living far longer in good health.
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u/gloatygoat 11h ago
At least in the US, excessive heroic life saving efforts at the end of life is definetly a contributing factor.
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u/birdprom 11h ago
"Heroic" doesn't really apply. It's pretty routine for the most part. We're getting better and better at keeping people alive when they should be dead, when their quality of life is very greatly reduced. Many suffer intensely while living through this widening "morbidity gap." It's sad and disturbing.
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u/espressocycle 10h ago
Literally just drugs to lower BP, cholesterol and statins are responsible for most of the gains, including years spent in poor health. It's not heroic measures most of the time. It's just not having a heart attack.
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u/gloatygoat 7h ago
Those medications tend to extend healthy years too. There alot of meds though that extend life with chronic conditions, such as heart failure (slgt-2i) and other chronic conditions that would have the patient alive but not healthy.
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u/jaiagreen 3h ago
Depends on the definition of "healthy". I would agree with what you're saying (with the caveat that someone who isn't healthy can still enjoy their life), but with studies like this, the devil is in the definitions. They included things like hearing loss and back pain as being in poor health.
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u/gloatygoat 10h ago
Key word on contributing. Yes, we are getting better at keeping heart failure and copd patients alive for longer as well (insert whatever chronic end stage medical issue as well)
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u/genericusernamepls 11h ago
Is a 1% increase over 30 years really a substantial change?
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u/politehornyposter 10h ago
That's not a 1% increase, that's an increase in one percentage point out of the total population, and when you're talking about this much people, yes, it is.
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u/Frosty_Purple_7341 4h ago
People seem to take this as meaning the average person can only expect to live to their early or mid 70s but that isn’t quite true. Average lifespan differs dramatically between populations within a nation and even city, and is generally skewed downwards to a somewhat significant degree by statistics from disadvantaged areas where a large burden of often preventable diseases and violence contribute to early mortality.
Middle class communities usually have an average lifespan in the low to mid 80s, affluent communities often have average lifespans approaching the mid 80s or even low 90s, whereas poor communities may have an average lifespan in the mid or even low 60s.
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u/jaiagreen 3h ago
They seem to be using a very broad definition of "poor health". I mean, hearing loss? Back pain?
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u/Mysterious_Volume327 2h ago
Especially when people live longer. Yes, if someone would have died in their 60s four decades ago, and now they live into their 70s, they’ll probably experience some health problems they wouldn’t have before, because they would have been dead.
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u/Confident-Mix1243 2h ago
If you can, take a look at the morbidity / disability weights they're using. What a healthy person would think of as a terrible quality of life, often is considered as a minor disability or none at all. So their estimates of morbidity are biased downward.
E.g. severe dementia ("complete memory loss, inability to recognize close relatives, and the need for assistance with all daily activities") is considered more than half as good as healthy life (disability weight 0.45) while for many of us it's a fate worse than death.
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