Americans Spend More Than 12 Years of Their Lives 'Burdened by Disease' — Highest of Any Country

Mar. 15, 2025

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Americans spend on average more than a dozen years per person suffering from disease — and have a greater “disease burden” than all other countries in theWorld Health Organization, a new study finds.

The research surveyed the health outcomes of 183 WHO member nations, and found that “the U.S. stood out with the largest healthspan-lifespan gap and greatest noncommunicable disease burden,” according to a study published in theJournal of the American Medical Association.

Healthspan-lifespan, in these terms, means how long someone is living without illness or disease. And while people are living longer, the study found, those are not healthy years.

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Australia and New Zealand were close behind in healthspan-lifespan gaps with 12.1 years and 11.8 years, respectively.

The study also found that women “globally exhibited a larger healthspan-lifespan gap than men” — up to 2.4 years globally, and 2.6 years in the US — which the study attributed to “a much higher per capita women musculoskeletal burden in line with a higher musculoskeletal disease burden globally in women.”

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“Worldwide, the healthspan-lifespan gap is a growing threat to healthy longevity,” the study’s senior author, Andre Terzic, a professor of cardiovascular research at the Mayo Clinic, toldThe Washington Post.

In the U.S., life expectancy increased from 79.2 to 80.7 years in women, and from 74.1 to 76.3 years in men; The study found a global life expectancy of 72.5 years — but only 63.3 of those years were healthy ones.

source: people.com