Australia Ranked ‘Best Performer’ in Life Expectancy Among Wealthy Western Nations: Study

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Australians have outlived their peers in other high-income English-speaking countries, with a study finding Aussie women living nearly four more years and Aussie men living five more years than their U.S. counterparts.

Australia has also been ranked the “best performer” in life expectancy at birth since the 1990s, with the bulk of Aussies’ life expectancy advantage accruing between ages 45 and 84, a study by Penn State University published in the journal BMJ Open on Aug. 13 found.

Key contributors to this trend include lower drug and alcohol death rates, lower rates of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, lower motor vehicle accidents, and higher rates of treatable cancers, researchers found.

The study’s results come after researchers analysed sex, age, and cause of death data from the World Health Organisation Mortality Database and Human Mortality Database between 1990 and 2019. It then compared life expectancy in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the United States—the world’s wealthiest English-speaking countries.

Additional longevity data from 14 high-income countries—Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland—were used for context only.

Researchers found that while most of the world’s wealthiest English-speaking countries achieved “robust” life expectancy gains during the 20th century, the trends in the 21st century have been less favourable, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Stalled reductions in cardiovascular disease mortality, along with rising drug overdose and mental and nervous system disease mortality, are key contributors to these trends,” researchers wrote.

Order of Life Expectancy

While Australia came out on top for life expectancy since the 1990s, Canada came in second during the same period. Most recently, Ireland and New Zealand converged with Canada.

However, the United States has been ranked the “worse performer” since 2001, with the UK having the second lowest life expectancy.

In 2018, Aussie women outlived their peers by 1.26–3.95 years, and by 0.97–4.88 years for Australian men.

Gaps in life expectancy at birth have also widened between the best and worst-performing countries.

In 1990, Canadian men and women had the highest life expectancies—74 and 80, respectively—while American men and Irish women had the lowest—71 and 77, respectively.

The corresponding gaps between men and women in Australia and the United States were 2.38 and 2.91 years, but by 2019, these gaps had doubled to 4.75 years for men, and 3.80 years for women.

Australia has low death rates across almost all age groups, but most of the life expectancy advantage accrues between 45 and 84.

Key contributors to life expectancy gaps in this age group include ischaemic heart disease, other circulatory diseases, cancers, respiratory diseases, mental illness, and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

The 65–84 age group made the single largest contribution to life expectancy gaps between Australia and the other five English-speaking countries.

Additionally, Australian men have ranked in the top four for life expectancy in all but one year between 1990 and 2019.

However, the researchers noted that there are areas for improvement for Australia, such as reducing inequalities among its Indigenous populations and the rate of obesity.

Why Australia Has Outperformed Other Countries

According to Michelle Gourley, head of the Burden of Disease and Mortality Unit at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), there are a range of factors that are likely to have contributed to Australia’s high life expectancy.

“Some examples include reduced exposure to certain key risk factors such as tobacco smoking (Australia has the fifth lowest proportion of daily smokers among OECD countries), large declines in cardiovascular disease mortality since the 1980’s, and low death rates from infectious diseases,” Gourley told The Epoch Times.

Other reasons from the study include a high proportion of people born overseas, as well as public health initiatives around gun ownership and mental health.

Additionally, Australia’s major public health improvements, government-sponsored health prevention and promotion strategies, universal access to health care, chronic disease management care plans, systems that monitor diseases and risk factors, and vaccination programmes have helped Australia achieve success in the area of health, Gourley said.

She noted that in the United States, there are higher rates of obesity, particularly childhood obesity, which leads to cardiovascular disease, higher death rates from drug and alcohol-induced deaths, and large health disparities between the highest and lowest disadvantaged groups, compared to Australia.

“The United States and similar countries could learn from Australia’s strong public health efforts and our approach to universal health care access for all Australians,” she said.