New Global Burden of Disease study reveals that income, education, and birth rates – while critical – are not the only keys to healthy living in 195 countries

Nigerians are living longer lives than they were 25 years ago, according to a new scientific analysis of more than 300 diseases and injuries in 195 countries.

However, such progress is threatened by increasing numbers of people suffering from serious health challenges related to childhood wasting, unsafe water sources, and unsafe sex.

These and other significant health findings are being published in a dedicated issue of The Lancet as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD).

The study draws on the work of more than 1,800 collaborators in nearly 130 countries and territories.

“Despite the limitations of the data sources that formed the basis of these estimates in Nigeria, as with many developing countries, the analytical techniques and the key findings are sufficiently robust,” said Dr. Bolajoko Olusanya, Executive Director at the Centre for Healthy Start Initiative and a GBD collaborator. “This should inspire optimism if appropriate and timely interventions are put in place by the government and its developmental partners to accelerate health progress and the well-being of Nigerians.”

In Nigeria, malaria was the leading killer, resulting in 192,284 deaths in 2015. The second and third top causes of death were diarrheal diseases and HIV/AIDS, killing 143,689 and 131,873, respectively.

But the conditions that kill are not typically those that make people sick in Nigeria. In 2015, the top three nonfatal causes of health loss were iron-deficiency anemia, low back pain, and major depression.

Globally, life expectancy increased from about 62 years to nearly 72 from 1980 to 2015, with several nations in sub-Saharan Africa rebounding from high death rates due to HIV/AIDS. Child deaths are falling fast, as are illnesses related to infectious diseases. But each country has its own specific challenges and improvements, from fewer suicides in France, to lower death rates on Nigerian roadways, to a reduction in asthma-related deaths in Indonesia.

Findings for Nigeria include: a child born in Nigeria in 2015 can expect to live to the age of 65, while that child’s parent, born in 1990, has a life expectancy of 54; while the world has made great progress in reducing deaths of young children, globally 5.8 million children under the age of 5 died in 2015. Of that global figure, 726,576 of those children were in Nigeria. The number of under-age-5 deaths in Nigeria in 1990 was 855,261 and despite the mortality rate for three neonatal outcomes decreasing, neonatal sepsis, neonatal encephalopathy due to birth asphyxia and trauma, and neonatal preterm birth complications account for 5.55%, 4.12%, and 2.91% of total deaths, respectively.

Other findings include, Nigeria has made progress in reducing the maternal mortality ratio, which fell from 471 deaths per 100,000 livebirths in 1990 to 285 deaths per 100,000 livebirths in 2015, while malaria remains the leading cause of death in Nigeria, the number of deaths caused by malaria fell from 227,645 in 1990 to 192,284 deaths in 2015.

The report was released at an event co-sponsored by IHME, The Lancet, and the World Bank in Washington, DC.

The study was established in 1990 with support from the World Bank. This year, researchers analyzed each country using a Socio-demographic Index, examining rates of education, fertility, and income. This new categorization goes beyond the historical “developed” versus “developing” or economic divisions based on income alone.

The six papers provide in-depth analyses of causes of death, maternal mortality, deaths of children under age 5, overall disease burden and life expectancy, years lived with disability, and the risk factors that lead to health loss.

In much of the world, giving birth is safer for mothers and newborns than it has been over the past 25 years. The number of maternal deaths globally dropped by roughly 29% since 1990, and the ratio of maternal deaths fell 30%, from 282 per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 196 in 2015.

“Development drives, but does not determine health,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle, the coordinating center for the GBD enterprise. “We see countries that have improved far faster than can be explained by income, education, or fertility. And we also continue to see countries – including the United States – that are far less healthy than they should be given their resources.”

Established in 2007, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research center at the University of Washington in Seattle that provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world’s most important health problems and evaluates strategies to address them.

IHME makes this information available so that policymakers, donors, practitioners, researchers, and local and global decision-makers have the evidence they need to make informed decisions about how to allocate resources to best improve population health.