Life expectancy up 5 years worldwide

In the past 15 years, life expectancy has shot up dramatically around the world, but the World Health Organization says there is still a long way to go for many countries.

Huge inequalities still persist, according to their annual report, World Health Statistics: Monitoring Health for the SDGs.

Between 2000 and 2015, life expectancy increased by 5 years, the fastest increase since the 1960s.

The gains reverse declines during the 1990s, when life expectancy fell in Africa because of the AIDS epidemic and in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The biggest increase was in the African Region of WHO, where life expectancy increased by 9.4 years to 60 years, with higher child survival rates, better malaria control and advanced treatment of HIV.

“The world has made great strides in reducing the needless suffering and premature deaths that arise from preventable and treatable diseases,” said Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, in a statement. “But the gains have been uneven.

“Supporting countries to move towards universal health coverage based on strong primary care is the best thing we can do to make sure no-one is left behind.”

Global life expectancy for children born in 2015 was 71.4 years, 73.8 years for females and 69.1 years for males, but a child’s life really depends on where they’re born.

The report shows that newborns in 29 countries, with high income, have an average life expectancy of 80 years or more. In contrast, newborns in 22 other counties in sub-Saharan Africa have life expectancy of less than 60 years.

Woman in Japan tend to live the longest, with an average life expectancy of 86.8 years. For men, Switzerland seems to be the place to be, where their average life span is 81.3 years.

People in Sierra Leone have the world’s lowest life-expectancy, at 50.8 years for women and 49.3 years for men.

Healthy life expectancy, meaning how many years a newborn in 2015 can expect to be healthy, is now at 63.1 years globally.

According to WHO, this year’s World Health Statistics shows that many countries are still far from universal health coverage, especially in the African and eastern Mediterranean regions. A good portion of people also face extremely high healthcare costs, at 25 per cent of total household spending.

The “World Health Statistics 2016” provides a comprehensive overview of the latest annual data in relation to the health-related targets in the SDGs, illustrating the scale of the challenge. Every year:

Every year, 303,000 women die due to complications with pregnancy and childbirth.

A total of 5.9 million children die before their fifth birthday and more than 10 million people don’t reach the age of 70 because of heart disease and cancer.

Air pollution from cooking fuels kills 4.3 million people a year, and outdoor air pollution kills another 3 million.

A whopping 80 per cent of the 475,000 murdered annually are men.

Causes of most deaths can be attributed to the fact that 1.1 billion people in the world smoke tobacco, 42 million children under 5 are overweight and 1.8 billion people drink contaminated water.