A study has found that people are living longer worldwide but spending more of those extra years in poor health, with the gap between lifespan and healthy lifespan widening in nearly every country examined. The finding matters because it suggests that longer life expectancy is not necessarily being matched by effective prevention and treatment of chronic illness.

Researchers assessed 204 countries and found the morbidity gap widened in 203 of them. The United States had the largest gap, meaning people there spent the greatest number of years living with health problems such as low back pain, hearing loss and depression.