Life expectancy worldwide is expected to increase by 4.9 years in men and by 4.2 years in women by 2050, according to the US Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease Study, published in the journal The Lancet”.

The increase is expected to be greater in countries where life expectancy is lower, contributing to the convergence of life expectancy growth across geographic regions. This trend is largely due to public health measures that have prevented and improved survival rates for cardiovascular disease, Covid-19 and a range of communicable diseases in mothers and newborns.

Global life expectancy is projected to increase from 73.6 years in 2022 to 78.1 years in 2050. Global healthy life expectancy, the average number of years a person can live in good health, is expected to increase from 64.8 years in 2022 to 67.4 years in 2050.

The report also finds that the ongoing burden shift from communicable to non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes, as well as exposure to risk factors associated with these diseases, such as obesity , high blood pressure, smoking and suboptimal diet, will have the greatest impact on the burden of disease in the next generation. As the burden of disease continues to shift to these diseases, it is expected that more people will live longer, but with more years of poor health.

In fact, another risk factor study, also published in The Lancet, found that the total number of years lost due to ill health and premature death (DALYs) attributable to metabolic risk factors has increased by 50% since 2000.

The researchers also studied alternative scenarios, whether various public health interventions could eliminate exposure to key groups of risk factors.

Projected impacts are stronger in the scenario of improved risks associated with behavioral and lifestyle factors, with a 13.3% reduction in years lost to ill-health and premature death in 2050, relative to the reference scenario.

See the scientific publication here