Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives

SOURCED WITH THANKS TO THE UNITED NATIONS

GOAL 3: GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

ENSURING HEALTHY LIVES FOR ALL REQUIRES A STRONG COMMITMENT

HEALTHY PEOPLE ARE THE FOUNDATIONS OF HEALTHY ECONOMIES.

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST TO ACHIEVE THE BELOW TARGETS?

Ensuring healthy lives for all requires a strong commitment, but the benefits outweigh the cost. Healthy people are the foundation for healthy economies.

For example, if we spent $1 billion in expanding immunization coverage against influenza, pneumonia and other preventable diseases, we could save 1 million children’s lives each year. In the past decade, improvements in health and heathcare led to a 24 per cent increase in income growth in some of the poorest countries.

The cost of inaction is greater than the cost of action – because millions of children will continue
to die from preventable diseases, women will die in pregnancy and childbirth, and healthcare costs will continue to plunge millions of people into poverty.

Noncommunicable diseases alone will cost low- and middle-income countries more than $7 trillion in the next 15 years.

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being of people at all ages is essential to sustainable development.

Significant strides have been made in increasing life expectancy and reducing some of the common killers associated with child and maternal mortality, but working towards achieving the target of less than 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030 would require improvements in skilled delivery care.

Achieving the target of reducing premature deaths due to incommunicable diseases by 1/3 by the year 2030 would also require more efficient technologies for clean fuel use during cooking and education on the risks of tobacco.

Many more efforts are needed to fully eradicate a wide range of diseases and address many different persistent and emerging health issues. By focusing on providing more efficient funding of health systems, improved sanitation and hygiene, increased access to physicians and more tips on ways to reduce ambient pollution, significant progress can be made in helping to save the lives of millions.