The latest on Minnesota's 2025 election

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

People around the world are living longer lives than ever before. But new research from the Mayo Clinic finds our health isn’t keeping up with our longer lifespans.

, published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open, looked at the gap between our lifespans and our health spans — that is, the number of years we live with disease.

People in the U.S. fared the worst out of all 183 World Health Organization member countries. While on average, most people live 9.6 years with disease, Americans live 12.4 years with disability and sickness.

“That reality is linked to an increasing burden of … lifelong diseases,” Dr. Andre Terzic told MPR News host Tom Crann on All Things Considered. Terzic is the director of the 

Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine

. “Mental and substance abuse disorders have come very high on the list of disease burden that afflicts, unfortunately, our lifespan and creates this gap with health span.”

Global life expectancy has increased drastically over the last two decades. But life expectancy alone doesn’t account for quality of life.

By focusing on health span, or disease-free years, Terzic and other researchers hope to increase the number of healthy years people have.

Terzic and the research team plan to further investigate the demographic, economic and health determinants of the lifespan-health span gap.

For instance, Australia and New Zealand had similar lifespan-health span gaps to the U.S., while Somalia, the Central African Republic and Lesotho had the lowest number of years with disease.

Women worldwide were also worse off than men. Women lived on average 2.5 more years with disease than men did.

To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above.

Health

Shows

All Things Considered

On Air

Tom Crann

Host

Gretchen Brown

Author

People around the world are living longer lives than ever before. But new research from the Mayo Clinic finds our health isn’t keeping up with our longer lifespans.


Mayo study: As our lifespans increase, our health isn't keeping up

Close up of gloved hands on the side of a hospital bed. 

Mayo study: As our lifespans increase, our health isn’t keeping up

Go Deeper.

Like this?