People Are Living Longer, but WHO Figures Reveal Growing Cost of Poor Health

Global life expectancy reached 73.3 years in 2023, almost returning to the 73.4 years recorded in 2019, before the pandemic disrupted health services and caused widespread loss of life.

Longer lives give people more time with their families, more opportunities to work and more years to pursue the things that matter to them, making the recovery in global life expectancy after COVID-19 an encouraging sign. The World Health Organization's latest Global Health Estimates, covering 2000 to 2023, describe a recovery shaped by growing health challenges, with chronic diseases, mental health conditions and drug use disorders changing the care people need across countries and regions.

Longer Lives Do Not Always Mean Healthier Years

Global life expectancy reached 73.3 years in 2023, almost returning to the 73.4 years recorded in 2019, before the pandemic disrupted health services and caused widespread loss of life. Healthy life expectancy, which measures the years people can expect to live in good health, recovered more slowly to 62.8 years, remaining 0.4 years below its 2019 level. These figures point to a challenge that reaches beyond survival: helping people spend more of their additional years without illness or disability limiting their everyday lives.

Noncommunicable diseases accounted for 74% of global deaths in 2023, up from 58% in 2000, and represented eight of the world's ten leading causes of death. The changing pattern extends across income groups, with communicable diseases accounting for less than half of deaths in low-income countries for the first time in 2023. Dr Alain Labrique, Director of WHO's Department of Data, Digital Health, Analytics and AI, described longer lives as a major public health achievement, stressing that health systems must respond to people's changing needs and help those extra years become healthier ones.

Heart Disease Leads as Diabetes and Dementia Take a Greater Toll

Cardiovascular diseases remained the leading cause of death and disease burden worldwide, with ischaemic heart disease alone causing approximately 9.5 million deaths in 2023. It accounted for 210 million disability-adjusted life years, or DALYs, a measure combining years lost through premature death and years lived with disability. Many parts of the world have reduced the burden of ischaemic heart disease since 2000, although increases in individual-level risk in WHO's Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions reveal uneven progress between populations.

Diabetes and dementia are becoming more prominent in the global health picture, bringing growing needs for treatment and continuing support. The risk of dying from diabetes has risen substantially since 2000, particularly in South-East Asia, and global deaths from Alzheimer disease and other dementias tripled over the same period. Dementia ranked fifth among the world's leading causes of death in 2023, compared with 19th in 2000, showing how substantially the causes of death have changed within little more than two decades.

Mental Health Needs Grow as Countries Plan Their Response

Depression and anxiety are contributing to a rising loss of healthy life, with the global age-standardised DALY rate increasing by approximately 20% for depressive disorders and nearly 45% for anxiety disorders between 2019 and 2023. These rates account for differences in population age structure, making comparisons over time more meaningful. Together, the two conditions accounted for an estimated 110 million years of healthy life lost through premature death and disability in 2023. Drug use disorders followed different regional paths between 2000 and 2023, with the Americas recording the largest increases in mortality risk and healthy life loss, and the Western Pacific recording substantial declines.

Labrique said the estimates give countries evidence to shape health policies and priorities around the problems their populations face. He highlighted WHO's support for resilient digital and data infrastructure, alongside stronger national and local capacity to analyse health information and produce timely insights. Those capabilities can help countries direct effective interventions towards the people who need them, giving health services a clearer basis for improving both the length and quality of life.