Lancet Commission: 17 threats could cost billions of healthy life years by 2100

A commission convened by the medical journal The Lancet has identified 17 interlinked threats to human health and survival between 2025 and 2100. They include air pollution, pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, obesity, high blood pressure, poor mental health, smoking, climate change and income inequality. Two of them – the malicious use of artificial intelligence and nuclear war – carry the potential for human extinction, according to the authors. The commission is co-chaired by Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and Natalia Kanem, former executive director of the UN Population Fund. It drew on 35 experts and data covering 204 countries and territories.

The figures are expressed in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), a measure of healthy years lost. Policies to curb obesity could avert up to 23.1 billion such years by 2100, the report says, and better education 16.1 billion. Income inequality accounts for about 13.8 billion years, which the authors equate to 25 COVID-19 pandemics. Preventing nuclear conflict would avert an estimated 133 million deaths, while limiting warming to about 1.8 rather than 4.4 degrees Celsius would preserve roughly 1.89 billion healthy years. "The striking finding is not only the scale of these threats, but that humanity still has the agency to act," Murray said.

The report is being launched at the World Health Summit, held in Berlin from Oct. 11 to 13. Organisers list more than 75 sessions and over 400 speakers, with more than 4,000 participants expected on site and around 45,000 online. The summit's patrons are WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The commission calls for threat-ready health systems, more innovation and continuous tracking of emerging risks, including through a proposed "Lancet Monitor".