Although life expectancy varies in all countries, the World Health Organization said the average worldwide life expectancy amounts to 72 years. The European region has the highest average life expectancy at 77.5 years, while the region with the lowest average life expectancy is the African region, at 61 years.
Poverty is a major cause of a low life expectancy. That’s because poor people have many disadvantages when it comes to medical treatment and the other factors that contribute to a higher life expectancy. Education also dictates how long a person lives. People with a high level of education tend to live longer compared to people with low levels of education. That’s because a better education often leads to a healthier life, which increases life expectancy. Other causes for a low life expectancy include social isolation, fast food, alcohol, tobacco, genetics, illegal drugs, stress, lack of exercise, diseases and lack of adequate health care.
The WHO lists the following as the top 10 global causes of death in 2019: Ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory infections, neonatal disorders, damaged trachea, bronchus and lung cancers, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, diarrheal diseases, diabetes mellitus, and kidney diseases.
The Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Society and Health is an academic research center working to connect the dots between social factors and health. It said that the greater one’s income, the lower one’s likelihood of disease and premature death. “Studies show that Americans at all income levels are less healthy than those with incomes higher than their own. Middle-class Americans are healthier than those living in or near poverty, but they are less healthy than the upper class. Even wealthy Americans are less healthy than those Americans with higher incomes.” In other words, rich people live longer.
As the defining global health crisis of the 21st century, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused the largest cut to life expectancy since World War II, according to a new study. Over 28 million more years of life were lost than expected in 2020 in 31 upper-middle and high-income countries, according to a study led by Dr. Nazrul Islam from Oxford Population Health.
Life expectancy fell by more than six months compared with 2019 in 22 of the 29 countries analyzed in the study, which spanned Europe, the United States and Chile. There were reductions in life expectancy in 27 of the 29 countries overall. The researchers did not include most countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America due to a lack of data.
In the United Nations’ Life Expectancy of the World Population, the Philippines ranked 129th among 193 countries. Based on UN data, the life expectancy of Filipinos now is 71.66 years for both sexes. The Central African Republic is at the bottom with 54.36 years.
The UN said people in Hong Kong have the longest life expectancy in the world at 85.29 years for both sexes, dislodging the Japanese who are not so far behind in second place at 85.03 years. Hong Kong’s leading longevity can be attributed to a number of factors such as the success of its economic development, tough government measures to curb smoking, and the existence of a public health-care system that gives people adequate health care, regardless of lack of means.
Winston Churchill said healthy citizens are the greatest assets of any country. We hope that the next administration will focus on health-care programs that will improve the life expectancy of Filipinos. If we all have access to good health programs, chronic conditions that generally affect older people can be diagnosed early and treated before they become irreparable. That’s the best way to increase the number of Filipino centenarians.