The chronic costs of poor health
The COVID-19 pandemic, despite being only six months old, has incurred severe human and economic damage to the world. According to the International Labour Organization's (ILO)
latest estimates, there has been a 14% loss in working hours worldwide since Q4 2019, equivalent to a whopping 400 million full-time jobs.
The numbers are jarring. But have we ever thought that in normal times, the personal and economic toll that poor health incurs are actually far higher?
- About eight million people die annually—over one-third before reaching their 20th birthday—from infectious diseases that are largely preventable and treatable, amounting to almost 250 million years of lost future life;
- In a typical year, 43 days per person are lost to poor health and premature death, along with 5% productivity loss per worker with chronic conditions;
- Overall, ill health reduces global GDP by 15% each year—almost twice the likely impact of the pandemic in 2020—as a result of premature deaths and health conditions that leave people unable to realise their full economic potential.
The grim picture these findings paint serves as an urgent reminder that a reform is needed to reverse this trend for the world to start reaping the rewards of health. In the same report,
McKinsey Global Institute calls for a focus on prevention using existing measures more widely, such as public sanitation programs to reduce global disease burden. Others highlighted the urgency of
closing global social inequality and
building a health system that is robust with spare capacity, even if it means forgoing an efficient, profit-maximising economic strategy.
The call to change is dire. The world has to rise up to the challenge now.
