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PREVENTABLE HEALTH RISKS STEAL 5-10 YEARS FROM WORLDWIDE LIFE EXPECTANCY, SAYS WHO REPORT
The top 10 preventable risks to global health include unsafe sex, high blood pressure, tobacco, alcohol, obesity and other items with a strong behavior component, according to the World Health Organization's recently released annual report, "World Health Report 2002 - Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life."
"Globally, we need to achieve a much better balance between preventing disease and merely treating its consequences. This can only come about with concerted action to identify and reduce major risks to health," said Christopher Murray, M.D., Ph.D., executive director of WHO's Global Program on Evidence for Health Policy and director of World Health Report 2002.
The key threats to global health include underweight or undernutrition, unsafe sex (particularly HIV/AIDS deaths and illness), high blood pressure and high cholesterol, alcohol and tobacco use, iron deficiency, unsafe water and sanitation, toxic smoke from indoor fires, and obesity.
These leading risks account for about 40 percent of the 56 million deaths that occur worldwide each year and a third of the global loss of healthy life years.
Top risks, and the rise in healthy life expectancy gained from addressing these top risks, differ among the 14 geographical regions examined in the WHO study. As might be expected, the divide between the developing and developed world looms largest: Obesity plagues North America and Europe, while undernutrition remains a severe problem in poorer regions.
HABIT readers may find the CHOICE (CHOosing Interventions that are Cost Effective) component of World Health Report 2002 especially useful. The CHOICE module, presented in a new statistical database within the report, identifies and analyzes the cost-effectiveness of key health interventions for each region and each risk.
To download the executive summary or access the full report, go to www.who.int/whr/en/
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