Europeans are no longer living longer, says study
Source: Euractiv
Life expectancy in European countries fell slightly between 2011 and 2021, according to a new study published in The Lancet.
While Europeans have been living longer lives since 1990, a combination of health problems – like higher blood pressure and cholesterol, tobacco and alcohol use, and the COVID-19 pandemic – has erased decades of progress made in nearly all EU countries.
“We found that deaths from cardiovascular diseases were the primary driver of the reduction in life expectancy improvements between 2011 and 2019,” said Dr Nicholas Steel, lead author of the study.
The highest life expectancy drops were found in Greece, Italy, Portugal, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Luxembourg and Finland.
Not all hope is lost, however. The study showed that countries with better long-term investments in improving diets, for example, saw better life expectancies.
The researchers added that we haven’t reached a ceiling on biological longevity – or the length of time a human can live – yet.
“Countries like Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium held onto better life expectancy after 2011, and saw reduced harms from major risks for heart disease, helped by government policies,” said Dr Steel.
The same countries saw no loss of life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Beyond ‘bad habits’
Some of the core drivers behind life expectancy are down to individual behaviours like poor diets and tobacco use – but also how responsive national medical care systems are, as well as social factors such as increased poverty and inequality.
“Large funding cuts to health, social care, and welfare since 2010, particularly in areas of socioeconomic deprivation, affected the social determinants of health and therefore contributed to the slowdown in mortality improvement,” explained the study.
Currently, rising food costs and deserts across Europe are making nutritious meals unaffordable for millions, hitting low-income families the hardest.
Then there are significant gaps between countries, with 8-year differences between the highest and lowest life expectancies in Europe, according to the OECD’s 2024 Health at a Glance report.
Spain, Italy and Malta recorded life expectancies more than two years above the EU average, while Latvia and Bulgaria were more than five and a half years below it.
The EU has controversially scrapped actions to address its leading health problems, such as the European Beating Cancer Plan and around cardiovascular disease, in the Commission’s Work Programme for 2025.
The original article: belongs to Euractiv .
