People across the world are living longer, but they’re also spending more years coping with ill health, a recent study observed.
The “morbidity gap” — the number of years people spend in poor health, typically struggling with chronic challenges such as low back pain, hearing loss and depression — widened across 203 of 204 countries analyzed and was the most pronounced in America, the researchers found.
“Globally in 2023, an average of 14.5% of life was spent in poor health, compared to 13.6% in 1990,” the researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington reported.
The gap widened the most in the wealthiest countries where populations have access to life-extending resources, the researchers reported. Women are also living longer than men but are also spending more years in poor health, they found.
“To me, the most important message of this study is not that people are living longer. It is that we have become far better at delaying death than delaying functional decline,” Dr. Antony Chu, clinical assistant professor at Brown University’s Warren Alpert School of Medicine, told Fox News Digital.
“Modern medicine has achieved remarkable success in reducing mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer, trauma and infectious illness,” he added. “Yet many of those additional years are now lived with chronic pain, disability, sensory loss, depression or reduced independence.”
Researchers analyzed Global Burden of Disease data covering 204 countries and territories from 1990 through 2023. In their report, published by The Lancet Public Health, scientists observed that a small number of chronic, largely non-fatal causes were the primary contributors to the morbidity gap.
Musculoskeletal disorders, especially low back pain; mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety; hearing loss, falls and other non-communicable accounted for about 57% of all years lived in poor health worldwide. High fasting plasma glucose, obesity and aging populations were also important contributors.
The researchers noted that the study points to broad health trends but doesn’t prove exactly what’s causing people to spend more years in poor health.
“Our findings suggest that future gains in population health will come not only from helping people live longer, but from helping them live healthier,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington School of Medicine and senior author of the study.
“Progress in healthy aging should be measured not only by lifespan, but by healthspan [the number of years spent in good health], with greater investment in prevention, long-term disease management and chronic care to reduce years lived in poor health.”
The goal should no longer be simply extending lifespan but compressing morbidity and maximizing the number of years people remain physically, cognitively and socially well, Chu said, speaking to Fox News.