The authors said that the progress made by the seven countries in reducing the chances of premature death can be achieved in the early stages of the path towards providing full universal health coverage.
Ahead of the 2024 World Health Summit, in which the World Health Organization (WHO) is a partner, a new Lancet Commission report on ‘Investing in Health’ has set the goal of halving the probability of premature deaths worldwide. by 2050.
Seven of the 30 most populous countries, including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Iran and Turkiye, are on track to meet the “ambitious” yet “feasible” goal that the report’s authors have called “50 by 50.”
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The international team includes authors from institutions such as Harvard University School of Public Health, WHO and Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi.
They explained that, on average, a person born in 2019 had a 31 percent chance of dying before turning 70. If the 50 by 50 goal is achieved globally, an individual born in 2050 can expect to have only a 15 percent chance of dying before reaching age 70, they said.
The authors said that the progress made by the seven countries in reducing the chances of premature death can be achieved in the early stages of the path towards providing full universal health coverage.
To achieve the 50 by 50 goal, tobacco control, including taxation, is the most important policy that governments can adopt, given tobacco-related deaths and the established capacity of governments to implement tobacco policies, the team said.
In addition to other causes, the consumption of sugary drinks has been linked to an increased risk of premature death and heart disease among people with type 2 diabetes, according to a study led by Harvard University and published in the British Medical Journal in April 2023.
Regarding the exceptionally high risk of death from pandemics, the authors attributed the success of top-performing nations, such as China and Japan, to national implementation of public health fundamentals: early action, isolation and quarantine, along with financial support for the exposed.
As part of an approach focused on strengthening health systems, the authors proposed a series of interventions that they said could be cost-effective and feasible to implement in high-, middle- and low-income countries.
They said increasing investments and services for just 15 priority health conditions (eight infectious and maternal health conditions, and seven noncommunicable diseases and injury-related conditions) could reduce premature deaths by 50 percent by mid-century in the countries that choose to do so.
A decrease in deaths due to these 15 conditions was key to the gains made in life expectancy between 2000 and 2019, the authors said.
However, interventions that address these 15 conditions remain inaccessible to millions of people, they said, attributing this to a lack of focus on the initial high-priority steps of universal health coverage.
Other tax policies, including taxation of unhealthy foods and beverages and elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, would directly benefit health and generate revenue that can be invested in health services, the authors said.
“The 50 by 50 goal, with an interim milestone of a 30 percent reduction in the probability of premature death by 2035, remains achievable,” the authors wrote.
“The most efficient route is to concentrate resources on a limited set of conditions and increase funding to develop and implement new health technologies.
“Our analyzes have shown that the economic value of achievable mortality declines is high and is often a substantial fraction of the value of the gains from economic growth itself,” the authors wrote.
(Only the title and image of this report may have been modified by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First published: October 15, 2024 | 7:32 a.m. IS
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