A nurse checking a senior patient's blood pressure. Picture: THINKSTOCK
A nurse checking a senior patient's blood pressure. Picture: THINKSTOCK

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SOUTH Africans are living longer than they did a decade ago, but their later years are increasingly spent in ill-health, says a study published on Thursday in The Lancet.

Researchers attribute this trend to the fact that improvements in treating infectious diseases have not been matched by advances in combating disability and other non-fatal conditions.

The study finds that global life expectancy at birth for both sexes rose by 6.2 years between 1990 and 2013, from 65.3 to 71.5, while healthy life expectancy at birth rose by only 5.4 years over the same period.

"The world has made great progress in health, but now the challenge is to invest in finding more effective ways of preventing or treating the major causes of illness and disability," said the study’s lead author, Professor Theo Vos of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

In SA, the picture is more complex because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The study finds that life expectancy in 2013 was lower for both sexes than it was in 1990, but higher than it was in 2005.

This is consistent with work by the Medical Research Council, which shows life expectancy has improved in SA since the government began providing HIV treatment.

The research finds that life expectancy at birth for males rose by 6.57 years between 2005 and 2013, from 51.1 to 57.67, while healthy life expectancy at birth rose by 5.58 years. A similar trend is seen among women over the same time period, with life expectancy climbing 7.96 years, from 55.05 to 63.01. Healthy life expectancy at birth for women rose only 6.67 years, from 47.18 to 53.85.

The researchers use "disability-adjusted life years" to compare the health of different populations and health conditions. One disability-adjusted life year equals one lost year of healthy life and is measured by the sum of years of life lost to early death and years lived with disability.

The leading global causes of health loss measured in disability-adjusted life years in 2013 were ischemic heart disease, lower respiratory tract infections, stroke, lower back and neck pain, and road injuries.

The South African picture is different, with HIV, lower respiratory tract infections and tuberculosis topping the list of conditions responsible for health loss. Healthy life expectancy ranges from 42 years in Lesotho to 73.4 in Japan.

The study finds socio-demographic status — a combination of per capita income, population age, fertility rates, and years of schooling — accounted for more than half of the differences across countries.