Commentary on Mapping Life Expectancy: The Growing Gap in Life Expectancy between Ghana and Other Countries (2023-2024)
Keywords:
Ghana, Life Expectancy, Hong Kong, Macao, JapanAbstract
This paper maps the life expectancy between Ghana and other Countries based on 2023 and 2024 Global life expectancy rankings by two organizations. We used secondary data to scope life expectancy estimates in 2023 and 2024 from Worldometer and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and analyzed them thematically. We further conducted a literature review using Google search engines such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Webs of Science, Research Gate, and other online websites with keywords such as’ life expectancy’, and ‘longevity.’ We found from the two reports that African countries have the lowest life expectancy in the world. In the Global space, Hong Kong, Macao, and Japan which featured in the top five countries in the 2023 and 2024 reports have the highest life expectancy and have been consistent. We also found that Algeria had the highest life expectancy at birth in Africa in both reports in 2023 and 2024 leading the African Continent. Ghana, on the other hand, was not featured in the top ten African countries in both reports. This can be inferred from the literature on why Japanese, Hong Kong, and Macao people live longer. Policies to improve the life expectancy of the Ghanaian people should advocate for consumption and reliance on traditional Ghanaian diets and herbal teas as part of their diets as we found amongst the top four(4) countries in the world with the highest life expectancy.