Prioritizing Health: A Prescription for Prosperity
OVER THE PAST CENTURY, improved hygiene, better nutrition, antibiotics, vaccines and new technologies have contributed to tremendous progress in global health. Recent innovations have led to dramatic improvements in survival rates for people with certain types of cancer, heart disease and stroke in many countries. Improvements in health have extended lives and improved quality of life, contributing to the rapid expansion of the labour force and labour productivity in the second half of the 20th century, which were key factors behind strong economic growth over that period.
As countries grew richer, they invested in better food and safer environments, creating a virtuous cycle of improved health and higher incomes. Economists estimate that about one third of economic growth in advanced economies in the past century can be attributed to improvements in population health. Research focused on more recent years has found that health contributes almost as much to income growth as education.
Despite the progress of the past century, in a typical year, poor health and health inequity continue to limit economic prosperity. This plays out in two ways. First, premature deaths limit growth by reducing the size of the potential labour force. Over 17 million people lost their lives prematurely in 2017. Second, poor health or morbidity makes it hard for those suffering from health conditions to be economically active and realize their full productive potential. For example, a total of 580 million person-years were lost to poor health among those aged 15 to 64 in 2017, leading them to be absent from work or quit employment altogether.
Overall, we estimate that the cost of ill health was more than $12
