🌅 Today’s stat: 12.4 years

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SOURCE

Garmany and Terzic (2024)

WHAT TO KNOW

• While U.S. life expectancy has increased over recent decades, the added longevity isn’t always matched by healthier living, as Americans today spend more years managing illnesses than they did two decades ago, when the healthspan-lifespan gap (i.e., the number of years spent living with an illness) averaged 10.9 years. American women today average 2.6 more years spent sick than men.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Americans now spend more years living with illnesses than people from other countries, with Australia (12.1 years), New Zealand (11.8 years), the U.K. and Northern Ireland (11.3 years), and Norway (11.2 years), rounding out the global top five in terms of years spent sick. The average global healthspan-lifespan gap is now 9.6 years (up from 8.5 years in 2000).

CONNECT THE DOTS

• The widening gap is somewhat paradoxical, since it suggests advancements in life expectancy have also subjected people to a greater number of years burdened by disease. Experts say the gap underscores the recent focus on healthy longevity rather than simply prolonging life, and highlights the need for a pivot from reactive to proactive health care.