This archive report was first published on 5 September 2019.
According to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), men are dying earlier than women due to various diseases, including heart conditions and cancer. The report, released on September 5, 2019, ranked road accidents, chronic pulmonary disease, stroke, kidney diseases, tuberculosis, HIV/Aids, and self-inflicted injury as other leading causes of death among men.
The cancers that men are highly prone to include those of the trachea, bronchus, lung, liver, stomach, prostate, and oesophagus. In contrast, women are dying early of breast cancer, maternal conditions, cervical cancer, and Alzheimer's disease.
WHO explained that the conditions highlighted in the report are not the most important causes of death globally, but rather the ones that show the greatest difference between men and women's life expectancy. The report noted that the difference between the life expectancy for men and women is 4.4 years, with boys living on average to 69.8 years and girls living to 74.2 years.
At the age of 60, women still have a higher life expectancy than men, with women living 21.9 years beyond the 60-year mark compared to men who can live 19 years. The report also stated that the proportional difference between the two increased between age one and 80, with women expecting to live 7.6 years longer than men at age 20 and 14 per cent longer at age 80.
