The world population. According to the latest from the Global Burden of Diseases, which was published this Sunday in the magazine The Lancetlife expectancy on the globe is 20 years higher than in the middle of the last century and now stands, on average, at 76 years for women and 71 for men — in rich countries both exceed 80. The risk of death falls throughout the planet and, in general, populations enjoy . But not everything is good news. The report also reveals pending tasks and crystallizes some of the new challenges facing humanity, such as the increase in the burden of mental disorders or the increase in mortality in adolescents and young adults in North America and Latin America, mainly due to suicide and drug and alcohol abuse.
This, which manages to collect data from more than 200 countries by 2023, is the global health status in the post-pandemic world. After the Covid health crisis shook health systems around the planet and distorted traditional statistics, becoming the leading cause of death, the waters—and the trends—have returned to normal. Life expectancy, which fell during the pandemic, has recovered. And mortality, exacerbated by this infectious episode, has also been reduced. Heart attacks and strokes once again lead the most frequent causes of death and covid, for its part, falls to twentieth place in this ranking.
The report reveals worrying dynamics in some specific territories and age groups. Like what is happening with young people in North America and Latin America since 2011. The greatest increases in mortality are observed there, especially in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil: in the last decade, it has risen almost 32% among the 25 to 29 year old group; and 50% among those in their thirties. The authors point out as the causes of these phenomena the high rates of “deaths of despair”, a category of deaths “driven by economic, social and psychological factors” and due mainly to suicide, alcoholism and point out.
The United States, in fact, has been immersed for several years in that it has taken the lives of tens of thousands of young people: deaths from overdoses grew by 30% between 2019 and 2020, 15% between 2020 and 2021 and in 2022, the record was recorded, with 111,029 deaths.
To contextualize the phenomenon in Latin America, Jesús Adrián Álvarez, doctor in Public Health, also points out the effect of violence. “Among Latin American men, the high homicide rates in young adults add a critical dimension to this burden of mortality. This reveals a paradox: despite large investments in public health and social well-being, violence continues to shorten the lives of millions of people in the region,” he explains in statements to the Science Media Center Spain portal.
During the last decade, the largest increases in mortality in people aged 15 to 19 and 20 to 24 years were recorded in Eastern Europe – an increase of 54% and 40%, respectively. This phenomenon especially coincides with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: just since then, mortality in these age groups in both countries (especially in Ukraine) has skyrocketed.
Another area of war massacres stands out in the work: those perpetrated. Because although the regional mortality rates in North Africa and the Middle East are no longer the highest, they point out that “Palestine had the highest mortality rate and risk of dying before the age of 70 due to conflict and terrorism in the world.” Furthermore, they highlight for the Gaza Strip “an estimated loss of 30 years of life expectancy during the first 12 months of the war, a conservative estimate that practically halves pre-conflict life expectancy.”
Alert for Trump cuts
The study also warns the world about the effects it will have on development aid implemented by the Trump Administration. The authors recall that the US government contributed 22.6% of all development assistance for health in 2023 and in the accompanying editorial it is recalled that only the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, by Trump in his first months in office) was responsible for a 15% reduction in age-standardized all-cause mortality and a 32% reduction in under-five mortality, mainly in low-income countries. and medium and particularly in Africa.
“To maintain progress or even prevent under-fives in high-risk populations, it will be imperative to mitigate the effects of these funding cuts, while expanding other sources of funding, such as those from non-governmental organizations,” the researchers point out. The editorial emphasizes that some preliminary estimates indicate that development assistance in health decreased by more than 50% between 2021 and 2025.
Drugs, violence and depression, on the rise
The authors assume that “diabetes, drug use disorders, violence and heat waves” are currently some of the fastest growing threats to human health. In fact, since 2013, annual deaths linked to environmental exposure to cold and heat have increased by 6%; those related to drug consumption, 5%; those that have to do with diabetes, 3%; and those associated with conflicts and terrorism, 1%.
However, the research also focuses on the rise of: death and disability associated with anxiety and depression grew by 63% and 26%, respectively, since 2010. The pandemic may have had something to do with it, but the researchers go further: “There are several theories that compete with each other and complement each other to explain this increase, including the increase in the use of social networks, cyberbullying, child abuse, climate despair and rising cost of living and income inequality, and increased mental health awareness.”
According to the study, almost half of global mortality and morbidity in 2023 was attributable to . And, specifically, the variables associated with greater health loss were high systolic blood pressure, particle pollution, high sugar, smoking, low birth weight, premature birth, high body mass index (BMI) and high cholesterol, among others.
The growth and aging of the population, added to the transformation of the most worrying, is . Government alliances and health programs promoted in the last three decades have made it possible to put a stop to the scourge of numerous infectious diseases (tuberculosis, respiratory and enteric infections, diphtheria, tetanus…), to the point that non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes or ischemic heart disease, already represent almost two-thirds of the population. “Rates of non-communicable diseases are increasing, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The speed and magnitude of this epidemiological transition from infectious diseases to non-communicable diseases is of urgent concern,” he admits. The Lancet in an accompanying editorial.
Everything is changing and the world has entered a new era of global health challenges, reflects in a statement Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and author of: “The evidence presented in the study is a wake-up call, urging government and healthcare leaders to respond quickly and strategically to those that are reshaping needs. of public health.”
The poorest countries, although they have also improved their health status in recent decades, are still light years behind the territories with more resources. An example: in Spain, Italy or France, it is 85 years for women and 83 for men; while in sub-Saharan Africa, the average is 66 and 62 years, respectively. In the most depressed areas, two health threats are beginning to coexist: the historic scourge of communicable diseases—such as tuberculosis, malaria and other infections, which have reduced their incidence in recent decades, but continue to kill millions of people—with the expansion of other non-communicable ailments, such as obesity or diabetes.
The epidemiologist who has not participated in this research, celebrates the good news, such as the increase in life expectancy and the fact that communicable diseases have decreased, but also shows his “concern” about the risk of taking steps backwards: “A good part of the improvement in communicable diseases is related to vaccination and we are very concerned that there are countries with leaders who do not encourage vaccination. It has taken a lot for vaccines to free us from many diseases and We run the risk of them rising again. “That creates anguish.”
