Patterns of mortality and morbidity are rapidly changing around the globe. We all know we are going to die, but how and when it happens depends largely on who we are and
where we live.
The major death causing risks are well-known – perhaps malaria or AIDS-related diseases in Africa, or stroke, cancer and heart disease in North America and Western Europe. A recent study led by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), involving 486 authors from 50 countries, reveals that people can expect to live longer – in some cases, dramatically longer. Overall life expectancy worldwide has increased by more than a decade since 1970. The Indian Ocean island nation of Maldives has shown the most striking improvement: a woman there in the 1970s lived on average to 51; now the average lifespan increased by three decades.
The study further reveals a shift away from infectious diseases as a cause of death towards non-communicable diseases such as cancer, stroke and heart disease – often called “lifestyle” diseases. Among communicable diseases, only AIDS and, to a lesser extent, malaria has increased since 1990, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. Now only 25 percent of deaths globally are due to infectious diseases and maternal, neonatal and nutritional causes. More than 65 percent are due to non-communicable conditions, and just fewer than 10 percent are related to injuries, the bulk of them happening on increasingly deadly roads in the world’s poorest places.
