Chronic diseases cause 75 percent of all deaths globally. The toll is likely to rise.

It starts with some good news: Around the world, the number of people dying from infectious diseases every year is falling. Fewer women are dying in childbirth. More infants are surviving to childhood, and the average lifespan is increasing in many places. The result is billions of people are living lives that, in decades past, would have been cut short.

But here’s the bad news: With more people living longer, noncommunicable diseases — conditions not passed from person to person, like most cancers, diabetes, and heart disease — are becoming more common. In 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, noncommunicable or chronic diseases killed almost 41 million people, an increase of about 10 million since 2000. That accounts for about 75 percent of all deaths globally, making its rise an international crisis.

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