Life expectancy in Ireland could be increased by up to five years if the Government and individuals "made a combined effort against the major health risks", the World Health Organisation has said.
Among the WHO recommendations in the World Health Report 2002, published in Geneva yesterday, are increased taxes on tobacco, legislation to reduce the proportion of salt in processed foods, stricter environmental controls and "ambitious energy policies". Substantial gains could be made "for relatively modest expenditures".
The governments of developed countries should shift their focus from individual diseases and conditions to preventative measures.
This would require "bold government policies", says the report."To protect and improve health much more emphasis is needed on preventing the actual causes of important diseases - the underlying risks to health - as well as treating the established diseases ."
Almost half of the world's premature deaths annually could be attributed to 20 risk factors and "more than one-third of that burden is attributable to just 10 of those factors".
They are: underweight; unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene; iron deficiency; indoor smoke from solid fuels; unsafe sex; high blood pressure; tobacco consumption; alcohol consumption; high cholesterol and obesity.
In developed countries such as Ireland, the latter six factors reduce average life expectancy by five years, while the first five reduce life expectancy in developing nations by 10 years. Unsafe sex is a risk factor across the developed and developing world.
The cost of inaction "is serious", the report warns, while predicting that, unless action is taken, by 2020 the number of deaths caused by tobacco would be nine million globally, compared with five million a year now.
It predicted there would be "five million deaths attributable to overweight and obesity, compared with three million now, that the number of healthy life years lost by underweight children will be 110 million, which, although lower than the 130 million now, is still unacceptably high".
The World Health Report 2002 can be viewed at www.who.int.
