We’re spending more years in poor health than at any point in history. How can we change this?

We’re spending more years in poor health than at any point in history. How can we change this?

Life expectancy is rising, but we are also spending more time living in poor health.

It doesn’t have to be this way, according to a new study from the McKinsey Health Institute.

Medical advances and lifestyle changes could give us an extra six years of quality life.



Rising life expectancy is rarely seen as a bad thing, but what if those extra years are spent in bad health?

We are now spending more years in poor health than at any time in our history, according to a new report from the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI). But it also says things don’t have to be that way.

Making medical advances more widely available and adopting healthier lifestyles could enable us all to enjoy six more years of quality life, MHI says. Yet we have to be willing to embrace change to achieve this.

Although average global life expectancy more than doubled between 1800 and 2017 – from 30 to 73 years – the report says the proportion of people’s lives lived in poor or moderate health has remained unchanged at 50%.













We are living longer, but still spending 50% of our lives in poor or moderate