Abstract
Ethiopia’s average life expectancy has improved by more than 18 years from 1990 to 2015. This initiated interest to study the gain in life expectancy with respect to age structure and cause of death. Applying a life expectancy decomposition technique on secondary data obtained from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, the study found that the burden of disease in Ethiopia has declined from 626.18 in 1990 to 225.69 in 2015 per 1000 population measured in age-standardized rate of life years lost. The major causes of burden in 1990; namely lower respiratory tract infections, neonatal disorders, diarrheal diseases and neglected tropical diseases at rates of 89.2, 63.2, 61.2, and 42.2 age-standardized years of life lost per 1000 population respectively; have shown a fast decline in 2015. Deaths from neglected tropical disease showed 94.95% reduction, contributing to 5.71(27.30%) years gain in life expectancy followed by lower respiratory tract infection and diarrheal disease contributing about 4.65 years (22.23%) and 1.48 years (7.10%) respectively. On the other hand, about 3.3 (15.73%) years and 6.4 (30.71%) years of increase in life expectancy are achieved through improved longevity in infants and children aged 1–4 years respectively. In conclusion, the study found that reductions in under-five child mortality and decline in burden of major communicable diseases could explain the major gain in life expectancy. However, findings also revealed that the prevalence of non-communicable diseases and injuries are on the rise calling for the need to be addressed by the public health system.
Highlights
Life expectancy has been utilized as a quantitative measure of mortality and longevity within and across societies
Life expectancy decomposition virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome; ICD, International classification of diseases; Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Institute of health metrics and evaluation; lower respiratory tract infections (LRT), lower respiratory tract; NCD, Non Communicable Diseases; NGTDS, Neglected Tropical Diseases; STI, Sexually transmitted infections; World Health Organization (WHO), World health organization; YLD, Years lost due to disability; YLL, years of life lost
We show that mortality from cardiovascular diseases, lower respiratory tract infection, neglected tropical diseases, diarrheal diseases, neoplasms and tuberculosis are the major causes of death in 2015 with a slight shift in their order compared to those in 1990
Summary
Life expectancy has been utilized as a quantitative measure of mortality and longevity within and across societies. According to Raza et al, the last decade in the 20th century was characterized by stagnation in life expectancy owing to an increase in morbidity and mortality from Human Immuno-Virus/Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS); especially in sub-Saharan Africa [1]. Despite this challenge, the 2014 World Health Organization (WHO) report shows that globally a girl who was born in 2012 can expect to live for about 73 years, and a boy to the age of 68, which is about six years above the 1990 average [2,3]. Non-communicable diseases on the other hand have increased from 196.07 to 140.21 per 1000 (28.49%) in Ethiopia
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