- More women can expect to live longer but life expectancy improvement is much stronger in the rich than in the poor world
A World Health Organisation (WHO) study, one of the first to analyse the causes of death of older women, found that in wealthier countries deaths from non-communicable diseases has fallen dramatically in recent decades, especially from cancers of the stomach, colon, breast and cervix.
WHO said that life expectancy for women at 50 has improved but the gap between poor and rich countries is growing and could worsen without better detection and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and cancers.
Women over 50 in low and middle-income countries are also living longer, but chronic ailments, including diabetes kill them at an earlier age than their counterparts.
“The gap in life expectancy between such women in rich and poor countries is growing,” said the WHO study, part of an issue of the WHO’s monthly bulletin devoted to women’s health.
“There is a similar growing gap between the life expectancy of men over 50 in rich and lower income countries and in some parts of the world, this gap is wider,” WHO officials said.
“More women can expect to live longer and not just survive child birth and childhood. But what we found is that improvement is much stronger in the rich world than in the poor world. The disparity between the two is increasing,” said WHO Director Department of ageing and Life Course Dr John Beard in an interview at WHO headquarters.
Beard, one of the study’s three authors said, “What it also points to is that we need particularly in low and middle-income countries to start to think about how these emerging needs of women get addressed. The success in the rich world would suggest that is through better prevention and treatment of NCDs.”
In women over 50 years old, no communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly cancers, heart disease and strokes, are the most common causes of death, regardless of the level of economic development of the country in which they live, the study said.
“That reflects two things, better prevention, particularly clinical prevention around control of hypertension and screening of cervical cancer, but it also reflects better treatment,” said Beard.
He highlighted that that in many developing countries, there is also limited access to high blood pressure medication to treat hypertension, one of the biggest risk factors for death. “Women with cardiovascular disease and cancers need the kind of chronic treatment provided to those with HIV/AIDS,” he added.