Japan, Singapore and Australia among world leaders in life expectancy

23 May 2017

APAC has fared well when it comes to life expectancy, with Japan, Singapore and Australia living longer lives compared to those from almost all other countries with the exception of the Swiss, based on the World Health Organisation's (WHO) latest World Health Statistics report issued last week.

Japan topped the life expectancy list at 83.7 years (average of both genders), followed by Switzerland with 83.4 years. Singapore ranked third at 83.1, followed by Australia at 82.8 years.

Singapore and Japan also did well for “healthy life expectancy”, which represents the number of years a person can expect to live in “full health” not considering those years in disease or injury. Japan also topped this list at 74.9 years, but Singapore edged out Switzerland (73.1) to come in second at 73.9 years. Singaporeans were also top worldwide for being least likely to die due to unintentional poisoning, or to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene habits.

In comparison, the global average life expectancy at birth across the genders is 71.4 years according to the WHO report, with healthy life expectancy globally at 63.1 years.

Universal health coverage

The report also includes new data on progress towards universal health coverage (UHC), Access to services is just one dimension of UHC; how much people pay out of their own pockets for those services is the other. The most recent data from 117 countries show that an average of 9.3% of people in each country spend more than 10% of their household budget on health care, a level of spending that is likely to expose a household to financial hardship.

Globally, the data shows that ten measures of essential health service coverage have improved since 2000. Coverage of treatment for HIV and bed nets to prevent malaria have increased the most, from very low levels in 2000. Steady increases have also been seen in access to antenatal care and improved sanitation, while gains in routine child immunization coverage from 2000 to 2010 slowed somewhat between 2010 and 2015.

The information is from the 12th edition of the WHO's World Health Statistics, which has been published annually since 2005. The report compiles data from the organisation’s 194 Member States on 21 health-related United Nations Sustainable Development Goals targets, providing a snapshot of both gains and threats to the health of the world’s people.

The full report can be found here and a selection of global results can be found here.