While high-income countries experience the widest morbidity gaps, reflecting gains in lifespan, this is not being matched by gains in healthy years of life.
This is according to a study, published in The Lancet Public Health, examining trends in healthy aging across 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2023 and which identified the leading conditions and risk factors contributing to years lived in poor health.
The Global Burden of Disease 2023 study found people are spending more years living with disease and disability in nearly every country worldwide.
In 2023, people spent an average of 14.5% of their lives in poor health. The global morbidity gap, the number of years people live in poor health, widened by nearly two years within a single generation, from 8.8 years in 1990 to 10.7 years in 2023. Rather than being confined to the final years of life, this widening was witnessed across the adult lifespan, showing that people are spending more years in poor health throughout adulthood.
But the study also found high-income countries experienced the widest morbidity gaps, reflecting gains in lifespan that have not been matched by gains in healthy years of life.
The US had the largest morbidity gap in 2023 (14.0 years), followed by Australia (13.9 years) and Canada (13.7 years).
While women consistently live longer than men, they spend more years in poor health, with a global morbidity gap of 12.1 years compared with 9.3 years for men.
Musculoskeletal disorders, mental health conditions, hearing loss, falls and other unintentional injuries, and other chronic non-communicable diseases accounted for more than half of all years lived in poor health worldwide.
High blood sugar, high body mass index (BMI), child and maternal malnutrition, and tobacco use were the leading modifiable risk factors contributing to years lived in poor health globally.
Consequently, the report’s authors call on health systems to prioritise healthy aging alongside longer life expectancy, adding greater investment in prevention, rehabilitation, mental health services, and chronic disease care could help reduce years lived in poor health.
