Global life expectancy has largely returned to pre-pandemic levels, though the number of those years a person can expect to spend in good health is lagging behind, according to the World Health Organization's latest estimates.
According to the WHO's annual Global Health Estimates report, average life expectancy worldwide stood at 73.3 years in 2023, trailing the pre-pandemic figure of 73.4 years recorded in 2019 by a margin of just one tenth of a year — a period during which health systems came under strain and mortality rates rose across much of the world. Global average life expectancy stood at 71.5 years in 2021, a figure reflecting losses that the Covid-19 pandemic had carved into health outcomes built over many prior decades.
Healthy life expectancy has yet to climb back to where it stood before the pandemic, the WHO noted, even as broader recovery across other health measures has been considerable. Globally, people could expect to spend 62.8 years in good health as of 2023, a figure that trailed the pre-pandemic 2019 level by four-tenths of a year.
Alain Labrique, who leads the WHO's data department, noted that while longer lifespans represent a public health gain, the task ahead involves ensuring those extra years are spent in good health as systems adjust to shifting population needs — a concern the WHO report also connected to broader shifts in the global disease burden since the pandemic.
Mortality figures tied to dementia have grown to three times their previous level, and the burden of mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression has also worsened in the period following the Covid-19 outbreak. Where longer lives remain unmatched by better health, the data point to a widening gap — one that looms larger as older age groups expand and long-term conditions take on a heavier role in shaping patterns of illness and mortality.
Over the 2000–2023 period, WHO data show that the Americas region experienced the steepest deterioration in both mortality risk and healthy life expectancy, whereas populations across the Western Pacific saw those same measures move in a notably favourable direction.
Global mortality in 2023 reached roughly 61 million people, according to WHO projections, with the ten most prevalent causes of death together accounting for around 33 million of those fatalities. Of the ten leading causes of death, eight fell into the noncommunicable disease category. Worldwide, non-communicable diseases now account for nearly three-quarters of all fatalities — a share that stood at 58% when the WHO launched its Global Health Estimates series at the turn of the millennium.
Across the globe, blocked or narrowed coronary arteries held their position as the single largest driver of mortality, responsible for roughly one in every six deaths recorded worldwide. Between 2000 and 2023, the toll climbed from roughly 3 million to 9.5 million — a near-tripling that outpaced every other category tracked over that span.
In 2023, cerebrovascular disease claimed the position of second-most-common cause of death, tied to roughly 11 out of every 100 fatalities, while chronic obstructive pulmonary disease followed in third place, accounting for around 6 in every 100. Among communicable diseases, infections of the lower respiratory tract held the top position in lethality while also placing fourth across all recorded causes of death worldwide.
In 2023, roughly 2.1 million people lost their lives to Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia, placing that group of conditions fifth on the global list of top mortality drivers.
Global mortality data showed Covid-19 had dropped out of the ten most prevalent causes of death worldwide, a threshold it had held throughout the pandemic period. Tallied across two consecutive years, the condition claimed an estimated 5.3 million lives in 2020 — placing it third among all recorded causes of death worldwide — before its toll climbed to roughly 9.4 million in 2021, at which point it overtook every other cause to sit at the top of the global mortality ranking. Tallied against the full roster of global mortality causes, Covid-19 ranked fourteenth worldwide in 2023, a year when deaths attributed directly to the disease numbered around 900,000.
Mortality tied to HIV/AIDS has dropped by 62% compared with 2000 levels, extending a broader pattern in which the disease has gradually receded from its once-prominent place among the globe's top killers. Once ranked seventh among the leading causes of death worldwide in 2000, HIV/AIDS had slipped to 22nd position on that same global list by 2023.
Global health data from the WHO point to life expectancy edging back toward pre-pandemic norms, though the pace at which people are regaining years of good health has lagged behind — a gap that, combined with the growing burden of non-communicable diseases, is testing health systems in countries around the world.
