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People are living longer than at any point in modern history, yet the diseases filling those extra years have shifted dramatically.
A new set of global health estimates released this week maps how the world has aged, recovered from the pandemic, and taken on a new mix of chronic and mental health conditions over nearly a quarter century.
The World Health Organization’s Global Health Estimates 2000-2023, published on October 2, show that dementia has climbed from the 19th leading cause of death globally in 2000 to the fifth in 2023, and that deaths from dementia have tripled over the same period.
Global life expectancy reached 73.3 years in 2023, nearly matching the pre-pandemic figure of 73.4 years recorded in 2019.
Healthy life expectancy, the years people live in good health, lagged at 62.8 years, still 0.4 years below the 2019 level.
A shift from infections to chronic disease
Noncommunicable diseases now drive the vast majority of global mortality. They accounted for 74 percent of all deaths in 2023, up from 58 percent in 2000, and made up eight of the ten leading causes of death worldwide last year.
Ischemic heart disease alone caused roughly 9.5 million deaths in 2023 and 210 million years of healthy life lost.
For the first time, communicable diseases accounted for less than half of all deaths in low-income countries, the WHO said.
“Living longer is one of the great achievements of public health,” said Dr. Alain Labrique, director of WHO’s Department of Data, Digital Health, Analytics and AI. “The next challenge is to ensure that those additional years are lived in good health, while health systems are equipped to respond to the changing needs of populations.”
A sharp post-pandemic mental health toll
The report also tracks a steep deterioration in mental health since the start of the pandemic. Between 2019 and 2023, the age-standardized burden rose by about 20 percent for depressive disorders and by nearly 45 percent for anxiety disorders.
Together, those two conditions accounted for an estimated 110 million years of healthy life lost in 2023 through premature death and disability, according to the WHO.
Cardiovascular risk still varies sharply by region. Individual risk has climbed in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia regions since 2000, even as other parts of the world cut their burden.
Labrique said the figures are meant to steer policy, not just describe it. The data, he said, “give countries evidence to help shape health policies and priorities.”
