P3 Part of the improvement is a gift of economic development. Citizens of richer countries live
longer and healthier lives because basic public-health measures and medical interventions have largely
conquered the infectious, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional disorders which continue to take a toll
(though a decreasing one) in the developing world. But not all the gains have been low-hanging fruit.
Advances in drugs, surgery, and epidemiology have brought reductions in years lost to more
recalcitrant diseases in every age range and in richer as well as poorer countries. As the treatments get
cheaper and poor countries get richer, these gains will spread