The Conditions that Keep Us from a Healthy Old Age

For people in the U.S., a handful of major conditions erode their healthy years

Katie Peek

Illustration of a colorful bar chart and people with different ailments — Graphic by Katie Peek; Illustrations by Greg Betza

This series was created for Google, the Buck Institute, Optispan and Phenome Health by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazine’s board of editors.

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To understand why healthspan has not kept up with increases in lifespan, longevity researchers need to know what exactly is making people chronically ill or disabled. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research organization at the University of Washington, has compiled data on people living with diseases and conditions that affect their health—a metric researchers call “years lived with disability.” As a population ages, these conditions pose a heavier burden.

These are the top contributors to years lived with disability in the U.S.:

These diseases contribute differently to disability at different life stages:

Graphics, years lived with a disability per 100,000 people by age group — The bars show years lost to disability in the U.S., grouped into 5-year bins. To allow easier comparisons between those age bins, the data are displayed as disease occurrence per 100,000 people.
Graphic by Katie Peek; Illustrations by Greg Betza; Source: The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation; data as of 2021

Graphic, healthy life expectancy at birth — Graphic by Katie Peek; Source: The World Health Organization; data as of 2021

Explore the emerging science of healthspan in other stories in this special report.

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