Global life expectancy reached 73.3 years in 2023, just below the 73.4 years recorded in 2019, according to the World Health Organization’s Global Health Estimates covering 2000 to 2023.
Healthy life expectancy, the years a person can expect to live in full health, stood at 62.8 years. The gap between the two figures shows that many people spend their final decade living with illness or disability.
The data confirm a long shift in what kills people. Noncommunicable diseases now account for 74 percent of deaths worldwide, up from 58 percent in 2000. These include heart disease, cancer, diabetes and dementia.
Ischaemic heart disease remains the single biggest cause, linked to about 9.5 million deaths. Its position at the top has held for years, reflecting ageing populations and risks such as smoking, poor diet and inactivity.
One of the sharpest changes is dementia. It rose from the 19th leading cause of death to the 5th over the period, with deaths roughly tripling. As people live longer, conditions of old age claim a growing share of lives.
COVID-19, which surged into the rankings during the pandemic years, has fallen out of the top 10 causes of death. That drop marks the fading of the emergency phase, even though the virus continues to circulate.
For health systems, the message is two-sided. Success against infectious disease and early death is real, but the burden has moved toward long-term conditions that need years of care rather than short treatments.
The WHO figures suggest the next gains will come less from dramatic cures and more from prevention, early care and support for ageing populations.
