THE prospects for a baby born in 2015 are much brighter than they were 1990. Worldwide, an average girl can expect to live 75 and a boy 69, gaining seven years apiece. Life expectancy has risen in virtually every country, but a handful that are blighted by war or disease, and the global mortality rate has plummeted 28%. The reduction is in part due to tackling maternal and newborn health and infectious diseases, which accounted a third of deaths in 1990. 2015 this had fallen to 20%, according to the latest Global Burden of Disease study by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, published in the Lancet. 2005 alone, deaths from both HIV/AIDS and malaria have been reduced by 40%, and maternal mortality by 30%.
The welcome decline mortality from communicable and maternal causes has corresponded with a rise deaths from non-communicable diseases associated with lifestyle and old age. Seven in ten people now die them. Ischaemic heart disease, stroke (cerebrovascular disease) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were among the leading causes death in both 1990 and 2015. The death rate from heart disease, already the biggest killer, has risen further. Meanwhile deaths from Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias have increased almost 50%, and certain cancers are proving more deadly. Diseases that have long been associated populations in richer countries, such as diabetes and kidney problems, are causing an increasing number of deaths.
