World Health Organization. 2002. World Health Report 2002: Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life. Geneva: World Health Organization, pp. 7-14.

1.2.2 PROMOTING HUMAN WELL-BEING: Health and well-being The overall health of people has substantially improved over the last sixty years. The average life expectancy for a newborn child has been extended from 46 to 69 years over the past sixty years. Much of this improvement is from reductions in infant and child mortality for which immunization, improved water, sanitation, and nutrition have played major roles. But major health problems persist both with the spread of infectious diseases characteristic of developing countries and the chronic diseases of industrialized countries. Other measures of well-being also show improvement as adult literacy has risen over 20(?) percentage points since 1970, and GDP/capita (purchasing power parity) has more than tripled since 1960(?). Global trends, however, often mask the plight of those that are left out in a persistent poverty that is sustained by growing inequality, shrinking entitlements, and environmental services, or are denied the very opportunity of life from the AIDS pandemic and reemergent infectious diseases. A child born in Africa has 25 years less life expectancy than one in Europe, a difference that has not changed in more than a century. Narrowing that difference is a central challenge of health and well-being. The Reading identifies the ten leading risks to health, the burden of disease that they cause, cost-effective interventions that can reduce this burden, and their varying impact around the world.

World Health Org. 2002 .pdf — PDF document, 257Kb