Longer lives, worse health? Scientists uncover troubling trend across generations

People across the world are living longer, but they’re also spending more years coping with ill health, a recent study observed.

The "morbidity gap" — the number of years people spend in poor health, typically struggling with chronic challenges such as low back pain, hearing loss and depression — widened across 203 of 204 countries analyzed, and was the most pronounced in America, the researchers found.

"Globally in 2023, an average of 14·5% of life was spent in poor health, compared...