WHO Identifies Major Causes of Premature Death

Poor childhood nutrition, unsafe sex, alcohol, bad sanitation and hygiene, and high blood pressure (BP) are to blame for around a quarter of the 60 million premature deaths around the world annually.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO; Geneva, Switzerland) Global Health Risks report, which looked at 24 major health risks, the leading global risks for mortality in the world are high blood pressure (responsible for 13% of deaths globally), tobacco use (9%), high blood glucose (6%), physical inactivity (6%), and overweight and obesity (5%). These are responsible for raising the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancers, and affect countries across all income groups.

When measured in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), the leading factors are underweight (6%) and unsafe sex (5%), followed by alcohol use (5%) and unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene (4%). Three of these risks particularly affect populations in low-income countries, especially in the regions of South-East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The fourth risk, alcohol use, shows a unique geographic and sex pattern, with its burden highest for men in Africa, in middle-income countries in the Americas and in some high-income countries.

According to the report, eight risk factors (alcohol use, tobacco use, high blood pressure, high body mass index, high cholesterol, high blood glucose, low fruit and vegetable intake, and physical inactivity) account for 61% of cardiovascular deaths. Combined, these same risk factors account for over three quarters of ischemic heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. Although these major risk factors are usually associated with high-income countries, over 84% of the total global burden of disease they cause occurs in low- and middle-income countries. Reducing exposure to these eight risk factors would increase global life expectancy by almost 5 years.

"Understanding the relative importance of health risk factors helps governments to figure out which health policies they want to pursue,” said report author Colin Mathers, Ph.D., a senior scientist in the Evidence and Information for Policy cluster at the WHO. "Countries can combine this type of evidence along with information about policies and their costs to decide how to set their health agenda.”

According to the report, global health risks are in transition; one the one hand, populations are ageing owing to successes against infectious diseases; at the same time, patterns of physical activity and food, alcohol, and tobacco consumption are changing. As a result, low- and middle-income countries now face a double burden of increasing chronic, noncommunicable conditions, as well as the communicable diseases that traditionally affect the poor.

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