The World Health Organization announced that global life expectancy had increased by 5.5 years between 2000 and 2016. This was the fastest increase since the 1960s.
In 2016, global life expectancy at birth was 72 years, 69.8 years for males and 74.2 for females. This is in stark contrast to the 66.5 years in 2000. The healthy life expectancy, which is defined as the number of years lived in full health, also increased significantly from 58.5 years in 2000 to 63.3 years in 2016.
Unfortunately, though, there is an 18.1-year gap in life expectancy between the richest and the poorest countries across the world. While life expectancy at birth is 62.7 years in low-income nations, it is 80.8 in the high-income ones.
This increase was made possible thanks to improvements in child survival rates, especially in the sub-Saharan region. Also, advancements against diseases such as HIV and AIDS caused an increase in life expectancy rates.
Read more about the report here.
