Smoking less and living longer

Marked inroads have been made into reducing exposure to some preventable health risks such as tobacco smoking, unsafe sanitation and water, and household air pollution, though these remain major causes of poor health, according to a EurekAlert story citing analysis published in The Lancet.

The analysis, which was published in one special issue of the Lancet, is said to have brought together ‘1,870 independent experts in 127 countries and territories as part of the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors (GBD) 2015 study collaboration’.

All the studies were funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

GBD 2015 analyses 249 causes of death, 315 diseases and injuries, and 79 risk factors in 195 countries and territories between 1990 and 2015.

Exposure to smoking fell by over a quarter worldwide, but it was still ranked among the top five risks associated with health loss in 140 countries, claiming 289,000 more lives in 2015 (total deaths 6.4 million) than it claimed in 2005.

Smoking was said to be the leading risk factor for poor health in the UK and the US.

Healthy life expectancy has increased steadily in 191 of 195 countries, rising by 6.1 years between 1990 and 2015.

But the world’s population has gained more than a decade of life expectancy since 1980, rising to 69.0 years in men and 74.8 years in women in 2015; so people are living more years with illness and disability.

The EurekAlert story is at: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-10/tl-tlg100316.php.

The papers are at: http://www.thelancet.com/gbd.