Have you had a friend or relative who died prematurely or endured years of suffering from a
physical or psychiatric disease, such as cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s,
or schizophrenia? Of course you have: the cost of disease is felt by every living human. The Global
Burden of Disease Project has tried to quantify it by estimating the number of years lost to premature
death or compromised by disability. In 2010 it was 2.5 billion, which means that about a third of
potential human life and flourishing goes to waste. The toll from crime, wars, and genocides does not
come anywhere close.
P2 Physical suffering and early death have long been considered an unavoidable part of the human
condition. But human ingenuity is changing that apparent fate. The past two decades have seen a 35
percent reduction in the per capita, age-specific disability-adjusted life-years lost to disease. The
improvements, though geographically uneven, are worldwide: every continent has enjoyed massive
gains