Global Life Expectancy Rises by 6.2 Years

Collaborating researchers from more than 100 nations incorporated more country-level data as well as additional data on specific conditions, to release a first-ever journal publication of country-specific cause-of-death data for 188 countries.  Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2013 team completed a systematic data analysis that found that global life expectancy for both sexes increased from 65.3 years in 1990 to 71.5 years in 2013, and women made slightly greater gains than men. Female life expectancy at birth increased by 6.6 years and male life expectancy by 5.8 years. The researchers project that  if trends seen over the past 23 years hold, by 2030 global female life expectancy will be 85.3 years and male life expectancy will be 78.1 years.  The number of people dying from certain conditions, such as heart disease, has increased as population has increased, but decreases in age-specific mortality rates for these conditions is a sign of progress. Death rates from most cancers, including breast cancer, cervical cancer, and colon cancer, have decreased, but the reverse is true for pancreatic cancer, kidney cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.