Ten great public health achievements–worldwide, 2001-2010

Worldwide, a child born in 1955 had an average life expectancy at birth of only 48 years. By 2000, the average life expectancy at birth had increased to 66 years and, if past trends continue, is projected to rise to 73 years by 2025. These improvements in longevity have resulted from improved living conditions overall, advances in medical science, and a number of population-level interventions. However, major disparities persist. During the past decade, in low-income countries, average life expectancy at birth increased from 55 to 57 years (3.6%), while increasing from 78 to 80 years (2.6%) in high-income countries. Analogous to the recent MMWR report highlighting 10 public health achievements that occurred in the United States over the first 10 years of the new century, this report describes global public health achievements during the same period. Experts in global public health were asked to nominate noteworthy public health achievements that occurred outside of the United States during 2001-2010. From them, 10 have been summarized in this report. As with the previous report, the 10 global public health achievements are not ranked in any order. Additional information regarding these achievements is available at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6019a5_addinfo.htm.