My mother often tells me that my generation will live to the ripe age of 100. While this may look like a bit of an overestimate, an review published in 2009 suggests that babies born after 2000 will live to see the next century.
Not surprisingly, humans are living longer than ever. A new study collected data from surveys, censuses, and registration information from more than 100 countries around the world from 1990-2013, looking at overall mortality and cause-specific mortality on a broad scale. It’s a lot of numbers and even more statistical analysis, so let’s break down the main points.
Global life expectancy at birth, the average number of years a newborn will live if mortality rates at the time of birth remain constant, for both men and women has increased from an average of 65.3 years in 1990 to 71.5 in 2013. The study projects that if the trend seen over the past 23 years holds, the 2030 global life expectancy will be around 80 years. Add in the fact that the greatest drop in mortality is seen in children under the age of 5, and it looks pretty good for the future.
Image Source: Mayte Torres
Decreased mortality from lower respiratory infections, diarrhea, and cardiovascular disease are the three main contributors to the overall increase in life expectancy. Of course, there are different trends in different areas and countries: higher life expectancy in low-income areas were due to a drop in deaths from diarrhea, respiratory infections, and neonatal issues while improvements in cardiovascular disease and cancer contributed to longer life in high-income areas.
HIV and AIDS, diabetes, various endocrine disorders, mental illness, intentional injury, and cirrhosis remain as problems, decreasing the life expectancy in various areas. But overall, life expectancy has been steadily increasing due to progress against many diseases.
So, maybe I won’t live to 100, but it looks like others might.
Feature Image Source: Spyros Papaspyropoulos
