A comparison of the diseases and risk factors that cause death and disability in high-income countries show that England has the potential to have the lowest total disease burden in the world.

According to a study led by Public Health England (PHE), in the 23 years between 1990 and 2013, life expectancy in England increased by 5.4 years from 75.9 years to 81.3 years. This was largely down to falls in the death rate from cardiovascular disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and some cancers.

South East England has the lowest disease burden when compared with high-income countries, says PHE, and England as a whole performs better than the EU15+ average, which is taken from the 15 original EU members as well as Australia, Canada, Norway and the United States.

The news isn’t all good, however, with improvements in life expectancy not being matched by improvements in levels of ill-health. As a result, the population is living longer, but spending more years in ill-health, often with a combination of conditions, some of which would have previously been fatal.

“People are living longer, but they are living longer with disability, which will require more integrated models of care spanning health and social services,” said Professor Kevin Fenton, director of Health and Wellbeing, Public Health England.

“The other important implication for health services is that it is likely that up to 40 per cent of its workload is due to potentially preventable risk factors. This reaffirms the importance of people taking positive steps today, like eating well and stopping smoking, to improve their health in the long term.”