Life expectancy returns to pre-pandemic levels, but the causes of death are changing

In 2023 global life expectancy reached 73.3 years, a value close to the 73.4 years recorded in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic. Healthy life expectancy, however, stood at 62.8 years, still 0.4 years below the pre-pandemic level. This is reported by the World Health Organization’s new Global Health Estimates, picked up by AgenSIR.

The most significant finding, however, concerns the composition of causes of death. Non-communicable diseases — heart disease, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory conditions — were responsible for 74% of global deaths in 2023, compared with 58% recorded in 2000. Eight of the world’s ten leading causes of death today are non-communicable diseases, a picture very different from the one at the start of the century, when infectious diseases and maternal and child causes carried more weight in the overall count.

Among the conditions growing fastest in relative terms, the WHO points to Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia: they ranked nineteenth among causes of death in 2000, rising to fifth place in 2023, with the number of deaths tripling over these twenty-three years. The aging of the global population and improved survival from acute conditions partly explain this shift: as more people reach advanced ages, conditions typical of old age increase accordingly.

The picture drawn by the Global Health Estimates thus points to an epidemiological transition now well established on a global scale: the decline in mortality from infectious and acute causes is giving way to a growing burden of chronic diseases, which require health systems oriented toward long-term management rather than emergency treatment alone.

It should be noted that the news currently comes from a single source (the WHO’s Global Health Estimates, picked up by AgenSIR); no independent confirmation is currently available to this editorial office. The next update of the Global Health Estimates, in line with standard WHO practice, is expected on a biennial basis.