REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON -- Fewer people are dying from respiratory infections and tuberculosis in many Southeast Asian nations, according to a new scientific analysis of more than 300 diseases and injuries in 195 countries. However, there is a large numbers of people who suffer from serious health challenges related to smoking and poor diet.

These and other significant health findings are being published in a dedicated issue of The Lancet as part of the GBD study. GBD gathered the work of more than 1,800 collaborators in nearly 130 countries and territories. “Many nations face significant health challenges despite the benefits of income, education, and low birth rates, while other countries farther behind in terms of development are seeing strong progress,” said Dr. Charles Shey Wiysonge, a GBD collaborator from South Africa who serves as a professor of clinical epidemiology at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Wiysonge added, policymakers in all nations such as from Thailand to Zimbabwe can use this study to align spending to target the things that will make their communities healthier faster. In many Southeast Asian nations, ischemic heart disease was the leading cause of death, resulting in 225,426 deaths in Indonesia and 13,573 in Cambodia. On the other hand, hemorrhagic stroke was the leading cause of death in Myanmar, leading to 35,034 deaths in 2015.

But the conditions that killed are not typically those that make people sick. "The top three nonfatal causes of health loss in Southeast Asia overall were low back pain, diabetes, and hearing loss," Wiysonge in a statement made available to Republika.co.id.

Globally, life expectancy increased from about 62 years to nearly 72 from 1980 to 2015, with several nations in sub-Saharan Africa rebounding from high death rates due to HIV/AIDS. Child deaths are falling fast, as are illnesses related to infectious diseases. But each country has its own specific challenges and improvements, from fewer suicides in France, to lower death rates on Nigerian roadways, to a reduction in asthma-related deaths in Indonesia.

Findings for Southeast Asia include over past 25 years, life expectancy has increased throughout the region. In 2015, the life expectancy was 76 year in Vietnam, 71 in the Philippines, 71 in Indonesia and 67 in Laos. While the world has made great progress in reducing deaths of young children, globally, 5.8 million children under the age of 5 died in 2015. Of that global figure, 11,603 of those deaths were in Cambodia, 3,274 in Malaysia, and 2,642 in Sri Lanka.

While the number of young child deaths was highest in Cambodia between these countries, results showed the greatest declines between 1990 and 2015. Many countries in Southeast Asia have reduced deaths of expecting or new mothers. For example, the number of maternal deaths in 2015 in Indonesia as much as 8,937, or lower than 18,715 maternal deaths in1990. And in Vietnam, the ratio of maternal deaths fell from 47 deaths per 100,000 live births to 16 deaths between 1990 and 2015.

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