Question

What are some of the reasons why life expectancy and good health continue to increase in some parts of the world and fail to improve in others? What best practices can be applied to those areas of the world failing to gain improvements in life expectancy and good health?

Answer 1

Life expectancy and good health continue to increase in some part of the world Due in large part to declining mortality from heart disease, life expectancy continued to increase in the last decades of the 20th century. Because heart disease primarily causes death among older adults, recent increases in life expectancy have occurred at older ages. Life expectancy has increased all the way up the age range, certainly up to 100 years. For instance, life expectancy at ages 65 and 85 increased by about 50% over the century (Bell & Miller, 2005).

an increase in life expectancy was driven mainly by improvements in sanitation, housing, and education, causing a steady decline in early and mid-life mortality, which was chiefly due to infections.

Developing countries, face similar problems in implementation of health programs and thus have shown poor progress on the Millennium Development Goals. Many of these countries are also facing epidemiological transition and facing a dual disease pattern, which leads to increasing burden on the limited resources, leading to program failure. This review is undertaken to look at the possible reasons for program failure focusing on India. Methods and Findings: A SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) has been undertaken to review the National Health Programs in India. Any program's inadequacy in achieving its goal can be attributed to one or more of the following: (1) Technical insufficiency, (2) Administrative inanity and (3) Operational incapacity. Even a single distraction of any of these determinants can be enough deterrent causing program-failure. Poor communication about benefits of health due to lack of awareness, poor use of healthcare informatics, insufficient management training, lack of financial resources and limited collaboration with other healthcare organizations were found to lead to program failure. Conclusions: Poverty mitigation, reduction of inequalities, health care financing, strengthening of public health information system, health education and communication, positive life style changes are some of the important domains on which the success of a program depends.