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.
The [study](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2827753), 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](https://www.mayo.edu/research/faculty/terzic-andre-m-d-ph-d/bio-00084640). “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.”
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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._