Rethinking Ageing Research: From Lifespan to Healthspan

Lifespan refers to the total number of years lived until death while healthspan denotes the period of time spent in good health, free of overt disease and disability. While global life expectancy has dramatically improved over time, healthspan lags behind. The World Health Organization estimated in 2020 that the global healthspan-lifespan gap was approximately 9.6 years, highlighting the growing disparity between longevity and years lived in good health. This healthspan-lifespan gap continues to persist despite improvements in the standard of living across most of the world. Indeed, in some countries the gap is even growing, with chronic age-related diseases being the main contributor. The personal, socioeconomic and healthcare cost of this gap is significant, and its impact will only increase as our population ages. Multidisciplinary efforts to improve healthspan are required to address this imbalance, which will provide benefits to all and enable older adults to continue to contribute positively to the community and to age well. Here, we discuss the healthspan-lifespan gap and argue that extending healthspan rather than lifespan should be a priority. We also discuss its many determinants, methodological approaches and challenges, potential strategies and interventions to improve healthspan and future research directions. Noting that different strategies may be required across populations and countries to address this imbalance. Given the varied efforts to investigate this question from multiple perspectives and the different strategies proposed, there can be optimism that in the foreseeable future we will increase healthspan and reduce the healthspan-lifespan gap.