Humans today live longer More than everBut how many of those extra years are spent in good health?
A database covering 183 member countries World Health Organization Now some scientists have confirmed what He was afraidWhile years are being added to many people's lives, healthy lives are not being added to many people's years.
Mayo Clinic researchers In 2019, people worldwide lived 9.6 years with a disability or disease - a 13% increase from 2000.
During the same time frame, global life expectancy increased by 6.5 years, but health-adjusted life expectancy increased by only 5.4 years.
In the US, the gap between a lifetime and a 'healthy period' is growing particularly wide.
In the year Between 2000 and 2019, life expectancy in the US increased from 79.2 to 80.7 years for women, and from 74.1 to 76.3 years for men.
When adjusted for healthy years of life, the length increased by only 0.6 years among men. And among women, while health-adjusted life expectancy has changed little over time, in In 2019, it matches the figure seen in 2000.
The widening gap means that if an American woman lives to an expected 80.7 years, the last 12.4 years of her life will be affected by disease or disability, on average.
According to public health researchers Armin Garmani and Andre Terzic, the health age-disparity in America is 29 percent higher than the global average.
"The data show that gains in longevity do not correlate with the same gains in healthy longevity. Often, getting older means more years of disease-free life." He says. Terzik, a cardiovascular medicine researcher at the Mayo Clinic.
"This research has important practice and policy implications, focusing on the growing concern over the quality of longevity and the importance of closing the health-age gap."
The results are consistent with previous studies from around the world, which typically consider one country at a time and suggest women. Tendency to live longer They are more than men Adds unhealthy life yearsMostly chronic health conditions.
In light of these trends, the World Health Organization recently Introduced A new metric known as Health Life Expectancy (HALE) to try and measure the burden of disease and disability in aging, especially after 60.
In 2020, the World Health Organization and the United Nations announced 10-year international action plan. In 2022, officials He wrote "To ensure that the elderly are not left behind, it is important to strengthen measurement and address data gaps."
Mayo Clinic researchers have now answered this call.
They have Garmany and Terzic in their review of the last two decades. Bright "The Gap Between Advances in Longevity, a Traditional Measure of Life Expectancy, and Healthy Longevity, a Current Indicator of Life and Quality."
The wide difference between these two measures is now confirmed as a global trend, and although this is a global problem, it is necessary to adjust the multifaceted way from country to country and between different groups of people.
For example, life expectancy and health disparities are particularly pronounced among women, who tend to carry non-communicable diseases such as musculoskeletal, genitourinary and neurological diseases later in life.
The largest health-age gaps were observed in the US (12.4 years), Australia (12.1 years), New Zealand (11.8 years), the UK (11.3 years) and Norway (11.2 years).
Meanwhile, the smallest gaps were seen in Lesotho (6.5 years), Central African Republic (6.7 years), Somalia (6.8 years), Kiribati (6.8 years) and Micronesia (7.0 years).
Given that ill-health is analyzed by measuring disease and disability, the next step is to dig deeper and see which groups are suffering the most in their later years and how we can help them age gracefully, he said. .
"The health age-life expectancy gap is a global trend, as described here, and points to the need for accelerated health care systems that focus on health," the two authors said. To conclude.
The study was published in JAMA Network Open.
[ad_2]
Source link
