Worldwide Life Expectancies Post Healthy Gains

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Summarizing a report originally published in “The Lancet,” Great Britain’s leading medical journal, The New York Times reports that worldwide life expectancies have increased dramatically in the last two decades. Representatives from over 300 public health agencies and institutions contributed to the British report, which contains mortality and life expectancy data for over 180 countries.

Treatment and Prevention Initiatives are Working

Public health officials credit developing nations’ aggressive immunization, food distribution and safe water initiatives for the most significant gains. “Times” health correspondent Sabrina Tavernise reports, throughout the developing world, improvements in sanitation, access to food, and medical services, and the success of widespread vaccination programs have produced striking results: Between 1990 and 2010, infant mortality decreased more than 50 percent, and malnutrition, formerly the world’s No. 1 health threat, has fallen to No. 8 on the worldwide rankings.

Data in the World Health Organization’s 2012 Snapshot of Global Health generally corroborates the British study. WHO reports, “In 2000, an estimated 9.6 million children under five years old died worldwide. The biggest killers were pneumonia, prematurity, diarrhea, malaria, measles, and HIV/Aids. By 2010, annual child deaths had been reduced to 7.6 million.” United Nations researchers especially noted a 74 percent reduction in worldwide measles deaths. In New York recently, WHO officials issued a formal statement saying that much of their data matches information in “The Lancet’s” report, but it cannot confirm all the numbers, because only 34 nations keep reliable cause-of-death records; British researchers prepared information on the other 146 countries by statistical modeling. Therefore, some data from United Nations agencies differs substantially from figures published in “The Lancet.”

Increases in “Rich Countries’ Diseases”

The British report highlighted significant increases in what worldwide health experts call “rich countries’ diseases”—obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. A few health researchers correlate these increases with rapid industrialization of some developing nations which improves overall standards of living but also increases risks from environmental carcinogens. “The New York Times” quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Ezekiel Emanuel, who asserts that increases in heart disease, diabetes and cancer “are, in a strange way, good news. They show that developing nations have overcome infectious and communicable diseases, and therefore people in those nations are living better and longer.”

American women conformed to worldwide trends in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer, but their life expectancies remained approximately the same as they were in 1990. Although some baby-boomers realistically may anticipate living beyond 100 years old, the average American woman’s life expectancy is up only two percent in twenty years, rising from 78.6 to 80.5 years. The United States ranks 36th in worldwide life expectancies, down 14 places from 1990, and falling behind several nations still considered members of the “third world.”

“Third World U.S.A.”

Esperanza Canez, researcher at the University of California, San Diego, expressed her continuing concern for disadvantaged children in the United States. “Although this country has the world’s most advanced healthcare technology and offers exceptional care to people who can afford it, families below the poverty line have almost the same rates of disease, malnutrition and infant mortality as their counterparts in developing nations.” Canez says she looks forward to some improvement when reform legislation takes effect in 2014, but she insists, “Whatever people’s political positions, one way or another this country must find means for nourishing, vaccinating and caring for all of its children regardless of their ethnic origins and social classes.” Canez laments, “Right now, the gap between upper-middle-class and poor children stretches wider and goes deeper than the Grand Canyon.”