Life Expectancy Rises Around World, Study Finds
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
More people worldwide are living into old age, but the gains in the United States were much smaller.
Life Expectancy Rises Around the World, Study Finds
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: December 13, 2012 75 Comments
A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and diseases like measles
and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over
the past 20 years, according to a new report,
with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and
dying from diseases more associated with rich countries, like cancer and
heart disease.
The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and
access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success
of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are
dramatic: infant mortality has declined by more than half between 1990
and 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of
life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.
At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two
out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990.
Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in
1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in
1990.
But while developing countries made big strides – the average age of
death in Brazil and Paraguay, for example, jumped to 63 in 2010, up from
28 in 1970 – the United States stagnated. American women registered the
smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries between
1990 and 2010. The two years of life they gained was less than in
Cyprus, where women gained 2.3 years of life, and Canada, where women
gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to
36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from
22nd in 1990.
“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the
United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington
that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American
women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women in this country formed
later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he
said.
The World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday saying that
some of the estimates in the report differ substantially from those done
by United Nations agencies, though others are similar. All
comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical
modeling because only 34 countries – representing about 15 percent of
the world’s population – produce quality cause-of-death data.
Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report,
which measured disease and mortality for populations in more than 180
countries. It was published Thursday in the Lancet, a British health
publication.
The one exception to the trend was sub-Saharan Africa, where infectious
diseases, childhood illnesses and maternal causes of death still account
for about 70 percent of all illness. In contrast, they account for just
one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions.
Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age
of death there rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared
with a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North
Africa.
The change means that people are living longer, an outcome that public
health experts praised. But it also raises troubling questions. Behavior
affects people’s risks of developing noncommunicable diseases like
cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is
far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a
vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.
“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in
the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health
Organization in Geneva. “It’s not something that medical services can
address as easily.”
日94歲老翁 角逐眾院大選
獨居 食衣住行自己來
川島阿公誕生於1918年，目前住在埼玉縣羽生市，雖然高齡94歲，但身體硬朗腰桿挺直，雙眼仍維持1.2的良好視力。獨居的他因為手腳靈活，包括煮飯、洗衣服、清掃等家事全都不假他人，還能自己開車上街。
川島是本屆1504名候選人中年紀最高的一位。過去日本眾院大選最高齡候選人是由自民黨前外相中山太郎所保持，中山在2005年以81歲高齡參選締造紀錄，2009年又以85歲高齡參選，刷新自己的紀錄。
至 於國會議員方面，日本年紀最高國會議員是1954年去世的眾議員尾崎行雄，尾崎當選了25屆國會議員，退休時為95歲，擔任議員時間長達63年，為日本史 上第一。美國最高齡國會議員則是南卡州的參議員塞蒙德（Strom Thurmond），他任職長達48年，在100歲時還擔任參議員，直到2003年元月宣布退休，同年6月過世。
川島阿公為何選在94歲出 來「拋頭露面」？他露出了銳利的眼神，以堅定的語氣向媒體表示「該是我出馬的時候了」。川島表示，中日戰爭爆發後，他在中國打了7年的戰爭，很多同伴陣 亡，他很幸運沒有戰死，但看到現在的政局發展，覺得自己如果沒有一點作為就兩腳一伸，將會對不起死去的戰友。
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