Global life expectancy has risen 5.5 years since 2000. This means that a child born in 2016 could expect to live to be 72 years old. This is up from the 66.5 years a child born in 2000 could have expected if one used World Health Statistics reports. There are many government policies that have contributed to this, though recent studies suggest certain policies aren’t as effective as first thought. Yet we are starting to determine what factors have the greatest impact on overall life expectancy and global health. Let’s learn why access to early healthcare, sanitation, and good air quality are directly related to life expectancy.

The Impact of Sanitation on Life Expectancy

Water, sanitation, and hygiene or WASH have a direct impact on early childhood survival rates. Waterborne illnesses spread through poor sanitation have historically killed a fair percentage of children before they reached the age of five. Furthermore, repeated bouts of diarrhoea contribute to malnutrition and stunted growth. Modern studies to get more accurate data on the impact of sanitation on life expectancy and long-term health are often insufficient since they don’t follow people long enough to get a full picture. They are typically skewed toward the rural population and have poor compliance.

A recent study sought to overcome these problems by combining data from the Demographic Health Surveys of 59 countries. It found that improved water access didn’t change survival outcomes for the poor very much, although greater access to sanitation did. For each one percentage point increase in sanitation coverage, under-child 5 mortality fell roughly 0.3 to 0.4 per 1000 births. All of this means that sanitation improvements only account for roughly ten percent of the decline in global child mortality rates from 1990 to 2015. However, piped water into the home was associated with a reduction in stunting or wasting. This shows that they have lower rates of serious malnutrition. For example, greater toilet use in a community is correlated with a lower rate of anaemia since there is a reduced spread of intestinal worms.

The Impact of Air Quality on Life Expectancy

There are an estimated three million deaths a year due to outdoor air pollution. Another 4.3 million deaths each year are attributed to air pollution from cooking fuel. To put this in perspective, more than twice as many people die every year from smog and other outdoor pollution than die in car accidents every year. Three million more people die from emphysema and respiratory infections due to cooking indoors over wood stoves than are murdered or commit suicide in a given year. This is why poor air quality is having a major impact on global life expectancy.

A Sacred Heart University scholar calculated that every microgram per cubic meter of particulate matter in the air we’re exposed to reduces our life expectancy by 0.04 years. The matter is more pressing in certain parts of the world. For example, half a million more premature deaths are occurring each year in China from air pollution than water pollution. Globally, particulate air pollution reduces life expectancy by nearly two years. For comparison, this means that the effect of air pollution on life expectancy now exceeds that of tuberculosis, HIV, and even war according to a study by the Energy Policy Institute with the University of Chicago.

Continue reading at TNT Magazine…