People Are Living Longer, With More Disabilities Than Ever

skade88 writes "Worldwide, people are living longer. Their lives are starting to look more like the lives of Americans: too much food is a problem, death in childhood is becoming less common, and so on. Yet with a population that lives through what would once have killed us, disabilities are starting to become the norm. A research report from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has a good glimpse into the new emerging world we find ourselves in." The Guardian has a nice visualization of the mortality data (but take note of shifting scales on the Y-axis).

Comments

Re:Speaking as an example...

[erice]

I'm a guy who recently had a piece of matter removed from the brain area and am still recovering six months later.

What's your point? Better that I was already dead?

The point is that while there has a been a great deal of success in keeping people alive, there has been little success in keeping them healthy. Even putting aside the individual pain and suffering, there are serious economic consequences. Unhealthy people produce less and require more from society. The sicker they are, the more this is true. Eventually society may have to let people die that they technically could save because they can not afford the resources to keep these people alive.

Re:Not too much food. Too much BAD food.

[Paracelcus]

Not like "the good old days" when we all ate organic food and lived to the ripe old age of forty!